And there was a light on just above her head, giving her an ethereal look that almost made me think of jewelry display cases. The kind that shone just right to display the diamonds in the case to entice the customers to stop and study them.
I definitely stopped.
And she took my breath away.
“She’s okay, as far as I can tell. I’m guessing she’s in a very deep sleep, nothing more. The baby is fine, as well. We’ve done a complete blood work up on them both. Healthy and happy,” my sister replied softly. “You need to just give her time. Not even a bump or scratch on her. The one Farrow said she sustained, the one that had all the blood caked around it, was healed as we got her here. I gave her a sponge bath and cleaned her up as best as I could. Now it’s all up to her.”
I nodded, walking to the bed and picking up Blythe’s hand.
It was warm and so soft.
I kissed each finger individually before placing it gently back on the bed.
Leaning over, I brushed my lips over hers. “Rest, my beauty.”
***
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Derek growled. “You shouldn’t have been there. The King of our people should be protected. The moment you realized that it was going to be bad, you should’ve turned around and gotten to safety.”
I leaned back in my office chair, the one that used to belong to my father, and narrowed my eyes.
I hadn’t even been in here for more than a minute when he started in on what a King should and shouldn’t do.
And everything I’d done today was on the ‘shouldn’t do’ list apparently.
Nikolai sat back in his own chair across the room, as did the rest of the men from my inner circle. My blood brothers.
Ian, though, was the one I was interested in.
His eyes were downcast, and he was looking at his hands as he tried his best to disappear.
Ian was weird on the best of days, but usually he didn’t want to disappear.
Usually he was looking for a fight.
This wasn’t like him.
“Ian,” I called.
Ian, I could tell, was practically screaming ‘FUCK’ in his head.
Hell, I could practically read his mind.
“What’s up, Ian,” I repeated.
He sighed and looked up.
I could see the indecision in his eyes.
“You want my brutally honest opinion?” He asked bluntly.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t have asked your opinion if I expected anything but brutal honesty.”
Because Ian told it like it was. He didn’t pull any punches.
The man was a relief at times, even when it hurt to hear what he had to say.
Ian took a deep breath.
“On one hand, I want you to stay protected. That’s the way of a King…but not you, in particular. Sure, you’re ‘King,’” he made air quotes, “But you’re not that kind of one. You’re a badass motherfucker on the easy days. We want you, not some fuckin’ imposter that is you, but the real you.”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
Strangely, I understood that.
He wanted me.
He didn’t want the me that had to act differently to appease the masses.
“I also think that if you do that, you’d be making different decisions, because you won’t be as informed. Sure, none of us would tell you anything but the Gods honest truth. But it’s kind of like those generals who fight from the sidelines. You’re not a sideline fighter. You’re a right there in the thick of it kind of fighter. The one that shields us with your might. The one that gives us the courage to keep fighting even when we can’t fucking feel our legs. Like today. We were all blind and confused, but you were right there even after your woman got hurt. And that,” he said, giving me the full force of his gaze for the first time, “is what we need.”
I felt his words like a punch to the gut.
“That’s what I want to give you. That’s what I’ll always give you. Because that’s who I am.”
It was a simple statement.
But one that was felt by us all.
“Motherfucker,” Derek breathed. “You’re not going to give in on this are you?”
I shook my head.
No.
I’d gotten the same advice from not just my mate, but Ian.
The one man, among them all, that was least likely to give a fuck about it all.
And I was going to take their advice.
Because that’s what I wanted to do.
“Alright, boys. Anything else we need to talk about so I can go back to my woman?” I asked tiredly.
“The house…with the friend,” Nikolai said.
I closed my eyes.
“We’ll do that after a few more nights of reconnaissance. I’m not sure what they have left there after their vehicles self-destructed, but I want to be sure before I send any more of our people in. We’ve already lost enough.”
Nikolai nodded.
“Anything else?”
They all shook their heads.
Except Derek.
“We need to have your crowning ceremony.”
I could tell he hadn’t wanted to say it.
But it had to be said.
It didn’t mean I had to listen to him.
“No.”
“Keifer…”
“I said no. Not without Blythe. When she wakes, we’ll do it. End of story.”
He sighed.
And with that, they all got up and left at the finality of my words.
And I was left a tired, wanting mess.
“Wake up soon, Blythe,” I ordered softly to the still air of my office.
Epilogue
It’s been a long week.
-Keifer in the middle of Monday
Keifer
Seven days later
“She had something in her stomach.”
I watched in horror as a USB drive was held out to me.
Taking it like it was a poisonous snake about to attack, I plugged it into the computer and winced when a file popped up.
“Fuck,” I hissed, clicking on it.
It was a sound file.
Short. Sweet. And to the point.
“I know you, Vassago. I know you better than you know me. I knew you’d come for her. You can’t resist helping the innocent,” he hissed. “Which was why I put a GPS tracker in her. You doomed yourself with your big old heart.”
Fear clogged my throat as I looked at the woman on the exam table.
The beaten and broken woman that would never have a normal life again.
“Find the GPS,” I ordered. “I’m going to be with my wife.”
I wasn’t as worried as I could have been.
Joseph was dead. I’d seen him die myself.
There was no coming back from a death like that.
But when you cut one head off a Hydra, another two spouted in its place…and that was what I was afraid of.
I just had to hope that maybe…just maybe…Joseph didn’t share this information with anyone.
That it ended with him.
And then I laughed humorlessly…because Joseph was all about help…and he had help from damn near everyone. Including my own mother, at one point.
Not that she’d realized it at the time.
Mom had thought Joseph was her friend.
Joseph was using Mom to get in with the dragon riders.
Joseph had bided his time, getting to know my mom. Spending time at my father’s business, shooting the shit.
That’d gone on for years.
And my mom being my father’s secretary, while he’d built his business, she’d been there every day. Spent time with Joseph. Told Joseph some things she shouldn’t have.
And that’d been what had gotten my father killed.
I thought back to the night my father was killed, and a cold chill washed over me.
>
My parents used to take night rides.
When life got to be too much for them, they’d chase the setting sun on Angus’ back.
Something my mother had inadvertently divulged to Joseph during one of his visits to my father’s garage.
That night my father had died was burned in my memory.
It’d been the night I came into my powers.
His death had set up a chain of events that led to me killing five men, and watching my father take his last breath.
So for the next fifteen years, although I couldn’t prove it, I watched Joseph like a hawk.
What he did, who he did it with. Why he did it.
So it was easy to see all the ‘friends’ he had.
Congressmen. City officials. Police officers. Hell, even US Military.
So when he died, I felt no relief.
Someone wouldn’t let it go.
And with a woman that we’d taken from Joseph’s own home sitting in our infirmary, I had a good reason to be nervous.
Considerably so.
Because I had things on the horizon that I had no clue about…whether it’d be something minor or something huge.
Should I start packing up everyone now? Moving to a different sanctuary?
Darcy Manor had been the home of the King for seven generations…which made me reluctant to leave when I had a future son on the way myself.
“Stop thinking so much, you’re making my head hurt,” a groaning female voice came from in front of me.
I came up short when I saw my mate sitting up in bed.
We’d moved her to my private rooms when she’d shown no outward signs of illness.
We’d needed the room for all the other wounded. There were quite a few of them.
Over forty dragon riders had responded to my call a week ago once I’d spotted that first cage truck, and twenty of them had fallen with serious injuries.
Another thing we needed to discuss soon…strategy.
“There you go thinking again,” Blythe muttered tiredly, then yawned.
“Sorry,” I apologized, walking to the bed and sitting down on the side gingerly.
The position put her within inches of my face, and I studied her eyes.
“What happened, Drakina?” I asked softly, placing my hand on the side of her face.
Blythe picked up her own hand and placed it on mine.
“Apparently, your son did not like when you got hurt…and he made me fix you.”
I blinked.
“What?” I asked incredulously.
She nodded. “Yeah. It was bad. I felt it. Felt every single thing that happened to you. Before I’d been hurt, but I could still communicate through mindspeak. But then you got hurt and your child went a little nuts. I felt this huge energy start in my belly, and then all of a sudden I was taking away every single bit of your pain into myself…and let me tell you something…that sucked.”
My stomach clenched when I realized all that she’d done.
“How?” I was confused.
Things like this just weren’t done.
Then again, I’d been the first ‘true’ mating since my parents, so what did I know what normal was?
I think I need to do a lot more research.
“I think we need to take a trip to Wyoming. Our archives are there at their sanctuary. And I really need some information about just what we are going through,” I informed her. “But only after you’re well.”
She pursed her lips. “I am well.”
I shook my head. “You’ve been in a coma for over a week.”
She blinked. “Really? I feel like I’ve just been asleep, like a dream.”
I nodded. “Really.”
Then her eyes trailed down my body.
She cataloged everything.
The new scar above my eye, which was her scar that I’d been given, too.
The deep, dark circles underneath my eyes. The way my face looked ashen.
My unkempt appearance.
I’d lost some weight over the last week.
She saw all of it and more.
“You haven’t been taking care of yourself,” she admonished, scooting forward on her knees until she was butted up against my side.
I half smiled. “That’s because there’s a lot of sick. We had two dragons die, and with that happening it took away the rider’s ability to heal. We also have around twenty men in the infirmary,” I hesitated telling her about her friend, but I knew I needed to. Just not yet. Soon. “And I’ve been busier this week than I have been in a very long time. Patrols have been ramped up. And with some riders down, I’ve had to pick up patrols. On top of trying to spend as much time as I could with you, it’s been less than stellar.”
She moved until she straddled my thighs, and my tiredness fled.
All that I cared about right then was the way she felt in my arms.
“What are you doing?” I asked softly.
She was running her fingers along my face, across the scruffy beard, and down my jaw to angle along the crook of my neck.
“I think a massage is in order,” she whispered.
I didn’t argue with her. I’d made the mistake earlier, and she’d set me straight nearly instantly—in front of the entire freakin’ sanctuary, dragons and dragon riders alike.
I smiled and reached forward, taking the scrunched up shirt that was tucked underneath her and gently pulled it over her head.
She’d been wearing nothing but my shirt and panties for the last week.
I’d given her baths, of course, but as soon as I’d been done, I’d returned her to another clean shirt of mine and panties.
That’d been the special time together. The time where nobody bothered me.
The time where I shared with her my hopes and dreams, all the while praying she’d wake up for me and share hers with me.
She hadn’t.
But right then, with her nearly naked in my lap, I found that it didn’t hurt as much as it did then.
She hooked her own fingers in the hem of my shirt, and roughly pulled it off of me.
I blinked at the suddenness.
But then sighed when she pressed her naked chest up against mine.
Her small belly pressed against mine, reminding me once again of the life that grew there. That was already more powerful than I could ever hope to be.
And fear started to seep in, but Blythe expertly pushed it away with a sway of her hips.
Her nipples pebbled and trailed along my chest, snagging against the patch of hair in the center as her hands explored lower.
When she came to the waistband of my sweats, she slowly yanked them down until my erection sprung free.
It bounced between us a few times before she caught it and gave it a few gentle tugs.
“Keifer,” she murmured, looking up into my eyes with hers full of love.
“Yeah, baby?” I croaked.
She smiled.
“I want you to lay back, let me massage you.”
Groaning, I did what she asked, and she slowly slid off my lap.
“Get in the middle of the bed,” she ordered softly.
I put one heel into the bed and shoved, moving myself into the middle so my feet didn’t hang off the side and watched while she walked across the room and yanked one of her drawers open.
She unearthed a bottle of lotion and started to walk back to me.
My eyes were glued to her breasts.
They were bigger.
In just the week that she had been in the coma.
And her nipples were darker.
I reached upward and grasped the headboard with both hands, squeezing tightly to keep from launching myself at her.
If she wanted to give me a massage, I wasn’t going to argue.
I licked my lips, causing her to smile.
She placed the bottle on the bed beside my upraised arms and reached for her panties
, giving them a small shove and pushing them to the floor.
A breath hissed out of me, and my abdomen contracted with my body’s reaction to her.
“Fuck,” I breathed as I watched her place one knee onto the bed.
Her pretty pussy lips parted, giving me an unimpeded view of her clit, and I closed my eyes.
My cock was bobbing in need, pulsing with the rhythm of my beating-too-fast heart.
When I opened my eyes again, I was momentarily distracted by the way she was sitting.
Thighs parted, ass to heels, breasts heaving.
She stared at me for long moments before she smiled and straddled my hips.
My cock, the eager bastard, jumped hard, slapping against her clit the moment she got close enough.
We both hissed, and my eyes caught hers.
She smiled as she lifted up her hips, lined my ruddy head up with her entrance, and sank down, taking me fully inside of her.
We both groaned as her wet heat surrounded my cock.
But after a few short strokes, I was fully inside of her, and stopped.
She reached forward for the bottle of lotion, inadvertently moving my cock out of her channel briefly before she resumed her position and took me back inside.
“You’re going to kill me,” I groaned, neck straining as I leaned my head back as far as I could.
The evil, sadistic soon-to-be wife of mine, laughed.
“Oh, Keifer,” she rubbed her hands together to warm the lotion. “Do you know what it feels like to have you doing things with me while I’m asleep?”
Her words jolted me, and I looked up at her as she placed her lotion covered hands on my chest and started to rub.
“You remember?” I asked softly.
She nodded. “I felt like I was in a dream, but one where I remember every word. I remember the way you washed me. The way you held me for an hour while you bathed me. I remember the way your erection felt against my ass. The way your hand felt as it ran through my folds to clean them. You even brushed my teeth. I remember everything, and I only want to return that favor.”
I groaned.
Even the thought of her being aware of that was even hotter.
She leaned forward, and my overheated cock was met with cool air once again, chilling Blythe’s juices on my dick before she went back down again.
I closed my eyes, straining to breathe.
Then she started doing something with her cunt.
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (The I Like Big Dragons Series) Page 18