no were to run

by Robyn Peterman

  I closed my eyes and pressed my mouth to his. He tasted even better than he smelled. I opened my lips to his exploring tongue and felt such a sense of completion it made me dizzy.

  “Mine,” he whispered into my open mouth. “You were made for me.”

  His hands were everywhere at once and I matched his frenzied need to memorize each other’s bodies. Never had anything felt like this. It was as spiritual as it was carnal. With each touch I was catapulted into needing more. He was like a drug.

  “I need all of you,” he demanded, looking as desperate as I felt.

  “Yes,” I whispered as yanked my dress over my head. His hissed intake of breath was music to my ears and I tore at his shirt and coat. “I want you to touch me and I want to touch you.”

  “Ask and you shall receive,” he murmured as he helped me with his clothes.

  His hot mouth paved a wicked trail from my lips to my neck and I shuddered with delight. With little bites and nips that made me see stars, I wasn’t even aware that he’d somehow removed his jeans. We were now skin to skin except for my barely there panties and his white boxer briefs. I knew we should slow down, but I couldn’t remember why.

  “You work fast,” I giggled. I watched his eyes begin to glow a brilliant green.

  “I know what I want,” he whispered huskily as his hungry mouth latched on to my breast and sucked hard.

  “Oh God,” I cried out as I arched into him, my body begging for more. “Shouldn’t we talk first and get to know each other better?”

  His laugh went straight to the hot coil of need spiraling out of control in my lower body. “Do you want to know if I put the toilet seat down? Or if I snore?”

  “Um…sure,” I gasped out as he went to work on my other breast and pinched the sensitive nipple of the one he’d just finished with.

  “Yes to number one and no to number two.” His mouth moved greedily to my neck and he bit down in a spot that sent little shock waves through my body.

  I screamed and realized I had no clue what I’d just asked him or what his answers were—and I didn’t care. I laced my fingers in his hair and pulled his lips to my mouth. Our tongues and teeth clashed as the kiss danced in a dangerously sexual rhythm.

  “Tell me now if you want me to stop. I can’t guarantee I can, but if we go any farther I won’t be able to.”

  “I don’t want to stop,” I said as I crawled on top of him and straddled his legs.

  His hands clamped onto my ass and pulled me forward to feel his desire. I’d thought his temperature was hot before, but he was now positively volcanic. I rocked against his huge erection and felt my body go liquid.

  “Goddamn, I want you so badly I can’t see straight,” he growled as he tore my panties from my body and plunged two fingers into my willing body while he pressed the heel of the same hand against my clitoris. “Gorgeous,” he said as my body jerked in orgasmic response to his expertise.

  “Nicolai.” I gasped as he hit the spot that made my vision narrow. “We can’t mate yet.”

  My Dragon Fire was dangerously close to flowing from my body and entering his. My words were rational, but my body was not on the same page. It was with my inner Dragon one hundred percent. I writhed against him like I was trying to crawl inside him. Control was nowhere to be found.

  “Damn it, why?” he hissed as he pulled back with Herculean effort. “You want this as much as I do. Why are you fighting it?”

  For a brief second I had no idea why I was fighting something that was so perfect—so right.

  “If you want to say something, for the love of God, say it now,” Nicolai ground out holding on to his sanity by a thread.

  And then I remembered. There was no good time to say it. And this was a particularly bad time, but the opening presented itself and I had to take it.

  I should have spoken before we’d gone this far. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “I have a son and if we mate I need to know you won’t kill him,” I blurted out on one terrified breath.

  Time stood still as Nicolai’s green eyes burned into mine with an expression I couldn’t decipher. I was unsure what was happening, but it felt very wrong.

  Nicolai’s body stiffened in shocked rage and he pushed me off of him in disgust. I fell ungracefully to the floor and buried my head in my knees. My heart shredded into tiny pieces. I should have trusted my gut. I was right and everyone else was wrong. This Dragon would never accept my child.

  Nicolai wasn’t the man for me. Fate was a bitch and she lied.

  “What exactly do you think of me?” he asked coldly taking me by surprise as he picked up his clothes and yanked them on jerkily. “You think me capable of taking the life of a child because I want his mother?”

  My head jerked up and I stared at him strangely. What was he saying?

  “It’s been done,” I said flatly. “My father did it to my mother’s first child from another mating.”

  “You’re comparing me to your father? To the man who skinned my sister alive?” he asked so calmly the hair on my neck stood up.

  His roar shook the walls of my suite and his fire shot furiously around the room. I stood up and faced him as my own fire erupted and tangled with his. I was very aware I’d possibly just made an enormous mistake, but it was out on the table and he hadn’t directly answered my question.

  Throwing my own needs and hopes to the wind, I asked my question and I needed an answer. “Would my son be safe with you?”

  Nicolai barely moved as an icy coldness came over him. I watched him drift from me even as he stood only feet away. Tears blurred my eyes and I wanted to curl into a ball and sob, but I wouldn’t. He would not see me break.

  “I am many things, Princess. I am arrogant and selfish. I am not good with what humans would call polite social behavior. I’m jealous and possessive, and I don’t like being played for a fool. I may be deadly—and trust me, I am—but I have never killed for any reason other than defense of my people or myself. I’m a goddamn Dragon, not a monster,” he shouted with so much anger directed at me, I blanched in shame.

  He waited for a response, but I didn’t have one. My fire was extinguished. I was empty of everything and felt numb. Death couldn’t be more painful than this and I wished it would take me now.

  “Your disrespect, your lineage, your insane power—all that I could take, but this…” He shook his head sadly then turned and put his clenched fist through my wall. The veins in his neck bulged and he took a deep breath to regain control. “This I cannot take. Your son would have been as safe in my arms as any other child we had together. He is part of you and that is enough for me. However, there is no need to test that theory because I no longer want his mother.”

  My knees weakened and I fell back onto the couch and dropped my face to my hands.

  “Any woman—including the one fate decreed for me—that thinks me capable of the barbarism that your father enjoyed during his soon to be ended life is not a woman I can love or want. Ever,” he hissed in disgust.

  “Nicolai,” I whispered brokenly.

  “Stop. Please just stop,” he said, refusing to look at me. “Whatever we had, you broke it. You have killed fate with words so vile I don’t ever want to hear them again. After we eliminate your father, you will leave. I can’t see you or be near you.”

  He turned to go and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I was so sorry, but it was something I had to ask. Daniel’s welfare was more important than mine. I’d grossly misjudged him and I knew it, but time would not rewind. I’d made my lonely bed and I would die in it.

  He was not the first man that hated me. I’d known hatred my entire life. I just hoped he would be the last.

  “We will work together civilly,” Nicolai said tonelessly with his back to me. “Because of nature, you will still stay away from the men when I’m present. I’d rather die than kill one of my own over you. Junior says he needs a week to be ready. Stay out of my way and I shall stay out of yours. We can communica
te through Lenny or my mother. Am I clear?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “You are very clear.”

  “Good,” he said without turning around.

  And then he walked out the door—and out of my life.

  Chapter 15

  “Oh my God,” Maria gasped as I pinned her to the ground. “I didn’t see that coming. I want to try again.” She hopped up and took a defensive stance.

  I’d gone on autopilot after my devastating exchange with Nicolai. I hadn’t seen him in days, but I’d stayed so busy that I fell into bed exhausted every night. I was training the Dragons to fight like killers. It was what I knew best and I was shockingly good at it.

  I fought and bled all day and then at night I spoke to Daniel until sleep took me. I was existing for two reasons only—to kill my father and to see my son.

  Even the male Dragons were in awe of my deadly skills and everyone picked up the new methods I taught quickly. Lenny was always hovering nearby, but he hadn’t spoken a word to me since I’d seen him with Junior. He just watched with knowing eyes and then disappeared when he felt like it. He was probably pissed at me too.

  Whatever. I had more important things to worry about.

  Thankfully, Maria was a good student. I needed her to be ready and strong. If I’d known about her, she’d never have been so woefully unprepared to protect herself. A week wasn’t long enough to teach her everything I wanted her to know, but it was all we had.

  Junior respected my desire not to talk about anything that had happened. After asking me once if I wanted him to kill Nicolai, he dropped it. If it was possible, I loved Junior even more. It was difficult to tell him that it was me, not Nicolai he should kill, but I told him anyway. He laughed and pulled me into a hug that I desperately needed.

  We were on track to bankrupt my father. It was only days away now. It was the only thing that kept me going along with my burning desire to see Daniel. A huge part of me wanted to run away from this place, but these Dragons had done nothing to me. Everything that was wrong in my life was my own fault.

  I replayed the scene with Nicolai over and over again in my mind. Sadly, I knew I still would have asked him the same question. In my world fathers did kill their sons…Soon I would come to terms that we were not meant to be. Right now it ate at my insides like a cancer.

  “Dima, did you hear what I said?” Maria asked as she took my chin in her hand and raised my eyes to hers.

  “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t,” I replied. “What do you need?”

  “I don’t need anything. You do. When did you last eat?” she asked with concern.

  “Um…” I couldn’t remember.

  I’d avoided the mess hall and most open areas so I wouldn’t run into Nicolai. The compound was huge and I’d been successful.

  “Come on, you’re going to eat or you’ll drop. We have a son of a bitch to kill soon and we need you,” Maria insisted as she dragged me from the training area.

  “Let me go to my room and change,” I said as I glanced down and winced at my blood spattered workout clothes.

  While the training was relatively safe, it wasn’t without a few wounds here and there. I refused to eat looking like an axe murderer.

  “Fine,” Maria said as she hugged my tired body. “I’ll meet you there in a half hour. If I don’t see you I will come get you and drag you over by your pretty red hair.”

  “Can you speak to your aunt like that?” I asked as a small smile pulled at my lips.

  “I just did, didn’t I?” she answered cheekily and flounced off to get changed.

  I realized that all the pain was worth it because I now had my niece in my life. I’d only have her for a short time, but it was better than not having known she existed at all.

  Maria was right. I needed to eat. It was ridiculous for me to keep avoiding Nicolai. We’d be together in battle. I may as well get used to his presence here so it wouldn’t be distracting when our lives were on the line.

  ***

  I rounded the corner to the mess hall and stopped dead in my tracks. There was an argument in full swing and I was the subject.

  Shit.

  “You’re a stupid asshole,” I heard Maria shout at the top of her lungs.

  Oh dear God, please don’t let her be yelling at Nicolai.

  “Why would she think differently?” she went on at full volume. “Most of her life she’s hidden among the humans while running for her life. Before that, she watched her father murder her mother and her brothers. Tell me, O great and compassionate leader, how would she know to think differently?”

  My stomach dropped to my toes. My niece was accosting Nicolai in my defense. This was a clusterfuck. As much as I tried to move forward, my feet were stuck to the ground. Literally. I couldn’t lift them.

  Someone touched my shoulder and I would have screamed if Lenny hadn’t gently put his hand over my mouth. He put his finger to his lips and indicated for me to be silent. He was all kinds of crazy and I was all kind of out of here.

  Did I really have to relive the horror from a few days ago?

  “Let me leave, Lenny,” I hissed. “I don’t want to hear this. I have to stop her. I fight my own battles.”

  “Shhh, child. Some battles are not meant to be fought alone.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “I’ve been called far worse.”

  “I’m not like her father,” Nicolai bellowed angrily. “She should know that.”

  “You are the dumbest man alive right now. I’d kill for a mother like her—someone who put me before her own happiness. Hell, I want to be just like her someday, but because you’re such a pigheaded jackass, she won’t be around to see it.”

  “Explain yourself,” Nicolai demanded furiously. “And refrain from calling me every foul name you can think of.”

  “I’ll call you what you deserve, assface,” Maria informed him rudely.

  She was definitely my niece, but I didn’t want her to be banished from her weyr for defending me. I wasn’t going to be around much longer and these people were her family.

  “I will ask you once again,” Nicolai ground out through clenched teeth. “Why won’t that woman see you as a mother?”

  God, could he not even say my name?

  “Because when she turns 500, she’ll die unless she’s mated, you canker sore. She’s from the fucked up Royal Dragon Line. Apparently we have some very stupid rules to contend with. I have to follow the same fucked up edict, but I have time. Dima doesn’t because you screwed everything up.”

  “I did no such thing,” Nicolai snarled. “She did that herself by putting me in the same category as the cold blooded killer who murdered my sister.”

  He was correct and Maria had overstepped her bounds. She needed to stop, but Lenny’s magic had encased my feet. He was going to get an ass kicking very soon.

  “If you’d pull your self righteous head out of your Dragon ass for a moment, you’d understand her fear,” Maria snapped.

  “Maria’s right,” I heard Elaina say. “Dima has lived in fear her entire existence. She knows very little of love and trust. She’s only recently found it and it wasn’t even with her own kind. It was the Wolves and Vampyres that accepted her—not us.”

  Kill me now. Was everyone going to put their two cents in about my pathetic existence?

  “I’d have to say you’re pretty much a jackhole,” Junior chimed in. “You need to get down on your knees and beg.”

  “She thought I would kill her son,” Nicolai shouted.

  “Would you?” Elaina asked.

  “Are you out of you ever loving mind?” Nicolai snarled. “I would never kill her son. My God, does everyone think I’m murdering imbecile?”

  “No, my child,” Elaina said calmly. “But with Dima’s past, the question was fair. It doesn’t reflect on you or your character. It reflects what she’s gone through. You need to tell her you would never harm her child.”

  “I did tell her that,” Nicolai growled and t
hen swore viciously. “I might have added a few other things as well.”

  “Awful things?” Maria demanded.

  “Possibly,” he admitted.

  “You are such a douche,” Maria added somewhat quieter, but still loud enough to be heard. “She will die because of you.”

  “No, she won’t,” Nicolai said. “I will find her and make this right.”

  Oh God no. I would not mate with him out of pity. I was better off alone. Everyone’s time was up eventually and mine was up in a few months. If I mated with him because he didn’t want to be responsible for my death, my heart would wither and die…