Dark Heat

by Donna Grant

  “Enough!” Guy bellowed. “At least until we get her injuries looked at.”

  She pushed her face into the rug, wishing with all her might that she had stood up to Sloan the night before when told they were going caving.

  Guy’s hands gently touched her, but she shoved him away. Tears that filled her eyes threatened to fall. She glared at him. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You might show them some kindness,” Con said. “They were the ones, after all, who got you out of the mountain. If no’ for them, you’d be dead.”

  “Bloody hell. Her ankle,” Banan murmured.

  Guy, who had been in the process of standing, was suddenly beside her again. This time when she tried to move his hands, he ignored her and lifted her in his arms.

  He was so gentle that more tears gathered.

  “You should’ve told me,” he said.

  She turned her face away and gripped the pillow as the four of them unrolled the leg of her pants and pushed it up over her left knee.

  “Can you move your knee and ankle?” Rhys asked.

  In answer, Elena squeezed her eyes shut and managed to move both enough to show she could.

  “I think her knee is fine. It’s the ankle I’m concerned with,” she heard Con say.

  For several excruciating minutes, they felt all along her ankle to see if anything was broken. She was relieved to hear that nothing was.

  “The foot needs to be elevated,” Banan said.

  It was Guy who tenderly lifted her leg and put pillows beneath her foot. A glass of water was given to her, along with two pills she recognized as aspirin.

  She was ready to dull some of the pain and didn’t hesitate to take them. The room got quiet. Elena looked at the men staring at her as if they expected her to faint or something.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to let out a scream just to shock them, but the pain and events of the day came rushing back at her again.

  “A woman is dead, and all you can think about is that we were trespassing,” she said, her eyes losing their focus.

  The faces of the four men began to blur. She closed her eyes and found it impossible to open them again. She’d never been so tired in her life.

  “We’re sorry about your friend. But it’s our lives that are at stake.”

  Elena tried to open her eyes to be sure if that was Guy who had spoken, but before she could, sleep took her.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  “We’ll have to keep things to a minimum. No more midnight flights. No more training. At least until she’s gone.”

  Elena wasn’t sure at first if the voice was from a dream or real. It sounded muffled, but it had to be a dream to talk of midnight flights.

  A mental picture of a man flying through the air flashed into her mind, and she knew it was a dream.

  “Tristan willna be happy. He’s begun to like having the freedom to release his dragon when he wants.”

  She was positive it was a dream then. Why would the men be talking of dragons? Everyone knew they weren’t real.

  “We can no’ keep her here indefinitely.”

  Guy. That was Guy’s voice. It was deep, smooth, and near, as if he was just in the next room. But what was she doing in bed?

  The fog of sleep began to dissipate as she struggled to consciousness. When she opened her eyes, it was to find herself on her side. The events from before came back to her quickly.

  Elena rolled onto her back, but found herself alone. She sat up to see the door pulled shut. Yet there was no denying the voices had come from outside.

  Suddenly, the door opened and Guy poked his head inside the room, his amazing pale brown eyes locked on her face.

  Her lips tingled as her gaze lowered to his mouth and she remembered the all-too-quick kiss she had dared to give him. It had been so unlike her, but she didn’t regret it.

  Recalling the feel of his wide lips against hers made her heart beat double. And her body yearn for more.

  A kiss. One simple kiss.

  In movies and books maybe, but to happen to her? It didn’t seem real. Yet the very presence of the man before her, his eyes darkening with unmistakable desire the longer they stared at each other, said otherwise.

  The passion was palpable, the desire undeniable.

  The need … tangible.

  “Elena?” someone said.

  She blinked and Guy looked away, the spell that had taken them now broken. Elena watched as the door opened wider as first Guy, then Con, Rhys, and Banan walked in the room.

  Con stood with his hands braced on the footboard while Banan leaned against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Rhys stoked the fire, his head down.

  Guy sank onto the foot of the bed, the heat of his gaze making her blood burn. She was all too conscious of how close he was, of how easy it would be to lean forward and kiss him again.

  She gripped the blanket and forced her gaze away from Guy’s handsome face.

  “How do you feel?” Con asked.

  She licked her lips and sat up, keenly aware of her hardened nipples scraping against the flannel of the shirt. Longing went through her, longing for Guy’s hands on her body.

  Elena swallowed and pulled the shirt away from her while adjusting her foot atop the pillows. “Better. Did you give me something?”

  “Just aspirin,” Banan said.

  Guy raked a hand through his shoulder-length honey brown locks, disheveling it. “You were exhausted after the events. Your body shut down to rest.”

  It made sense, so she nodded. “I think the swelling has gone down on my ankle.”

  “It appears so,” Con said. “I didna mean to frighten you during our last talk, Elena, but you doona understand how important it is that what we have here remains private.”

  “Nothing stays private in this world,” she argued. “Everyone has cameras on their phones, and video cameras at every street corner and store. Privacy is a thing of the past.”

  “No’ for us,” Rhys said, and set aside the poker as he faced her. “It’s because of the legacy of Dreagan that there are certain … concessions made for us.”

  “Such as?” she asked.

  Banan pushed off the door, his arms dropping to his side. “No planes or helicopters of any kind are allowed to fly over our land. All sixty thousand acres of it.”

  “Why?” It was all she could think to ask. People normally had a no-fly zone when they were hiding something. So what was Dreagan hiding?

  Con looked as if he was searching for the right words before he said, “We need privacy. We open portions of the distillery and the gift shop for visitors with the one road in and one road out. It was made that way for a reason.”

  “And the sheep and cattle? I know you sell them. Who picks them up?” she asked.

  Guy leaned his elbows on his knees. “We take them to sell.”

  “You make it appear as if you’re hiding something.”

  Rhys cracked his knuckles one finger at a time. “Privacy doesna equal hiding. None of us wish to be in the spotlight, and so we ask for one simple request: that all that we are, and where we are, stay private.”

  “But it’s an illusion. Everyone knows where you live. Everyone knows the mansion is behind the distillery.”

  Banan chuckled. “Have you seen pictures of our home before?”

  Elena thought about that a moment. “No, but then again, I haven’t exactly had the need to do a search. There are few things in this world that aren’t on the Internet in some shape or form. And you have to know the government knows all about you.”

  “Hmm,” Con said as he straightened. “An illusion, aye?”

  “If there is one thing about people is that the more you try to keep from them, the more they’re going to want to know about you. They’ll do whatever it takes to find whatever you’re keeping secret.”

  “Is that what you and Sloan were doing?” Rhys asked.

  Her head turned to him as she frowned. “What?”


  “You said yourself, people will do anything to find secrets,” Banan replied. “What were you and Sloan doing in our mountain?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, when Con talked over her.

  “The road Sloan had to take was hidden, Elena. It was hidden and closed off. How did she know about it?”

  Elena had the awful feeling she was being interrogated without being in a small windowless, stuffy room with one bright lightbulb shining at her face.

  She took a deep breath to try to calm her racing heart. “I didn’t lie to you. I told you all that I knew.”

  “No’ all,” Con said. “Start at the beginning. I want to know what you’re doing in Britain.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Elena saw Guy watching her, his face devoid of expression. He hadn’t spoken much, and she wondered why.

  The others were quick to point out what she’d done wrong, but no one was defending her.

  “I’ve worked for PureGems in Atlanta for eight years. I started as a file clerk while I went to college, and then worked my way up the company. It was my dream to work at the London branch and then move on to somewhere else in the world.”

  “Why?” Banan asked.

  She shrugged. “I want to see the world, to experience the different cultures. What better way than to work in those cities and work with what I love—gems?”

  “Go on,” Con urged.

  “I got offered the London position last month. I just moved here two weeks ago. Sloan was my boss. I was new to the office, new to London. When she told me we were going caving, I couldn’t exactly tell my boss no.”

  “When did you know where you were caving?” Guy asked.

  It was the first thing he’d said since she woke. She looked at him, desperately wanting him to believe her. “Not until we were at the cave. Sloan kept telling me it was a secret, a place she’d been wanting to explore for some time.”

  “Who told her of it?” Rhys asked.

  Elena shrugged. “I didn’t ask, and Sloan didn’t volunteer the information.”

  “Did she say what she was looking for?”

  Elena fought to roll her eyes as she glared at Con. “As I told you, no. She told me we’d only be gone two hours max, but when two hours came and we hadn’t turned around, I knew it had been a lie.”

  Banan moved beside Con and asked, “How so?”

  Elena struggled to find the right words as she remembered how Sloan hadn’t broken stride, but kept moving. “She knew I was a beginner, that I had never explored a cave before, yet she moved quickly through it. Almost as if…” Elena trailed off and looked away from Con.

  “As if what?” Con demanded.

  Elena wasn’t sure if she should say. The men already thought the worst of her, if she spoke her thoughts, they would assume she knew more.

  “Elena, please,” Guy said. “Finish your sentence. We need to know.”

  She closed her eyes, silent praying that Sloan forgave her if she was wrong. Elena opened her eyes and kept her gaze on her hands folded in her lap.

  “It seemed as quick as Sloan was moving that she knew where she was going. We rarely rested, and there was no time for me to see anything of the cave we were to explore. Until we came upon the opening. Only then did Sloan let us rest. And she was adamant about going into the hole.”

  When silence greeted her, she slowly lifted her eyes to find all four men staring at her with expressions ranging from of disbelief to acceptance.

  Without so much as a thank-you, Con turned and walked out of the room. Rhys and Banan immediately followed, but Guy stayed behind.

  Elena turned to him and said, “I’m telling the truth. I’ve nothing to hide. Why won’t any of you believe me?”

  “I do.”

  Those two simple words helped her to relax a bit. “I want to go home.”

  Guy looked away from her then, but in his pale brown gaze she’d seen a flash of regret. “That’s no’ going to be possible until Con is satisfied that he has his answers.”

  “He can’t hold me here.”

  “Aye, he can,” he said matter-of-factly, as if Con could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

  “No. I’m an American.”

  “In Scotland,” Guy said, his gaze once more returning to her face. “If he wanted, he could press charges for trespassing. For the moment he’s no’, but doona give him a reason to.”

  She put her hand to her forehead and looked at the ceiling. “This is a nightmare.”

  “Just continue to tell him the truth,” Guy urged.

  Elena lowered her hand and licked her lips. “How long will he keep me here?”

  “I doona know.”

  “What are you hiding in this place?” she whispered. “What are you so afraid of everyone discovering?”

  Guy released a long breath and raked a hand through his hair. “We didna become a powerful company for nothing.”

  “This is more than just the company.” It was a guess, but when a flash of intensity filled his eyes, she knew she’d hit the nail on the head.

  “Be careful what you say, Elena.”

  “Why? Will they hurt me?” When Guy looked away, unease snaked down her spine. “Why didn’t you just leave me in the mountain, then?”

  His brown eyes, ringed in onyx, swung to her as he rested a hand on the bed and leaned toward her. “You think we’re capable of leaving a person to die in the mountain?”

  “I don’t know you,” she whispered, hating how her body craved the hard muscular length of him against her when she was fighting so hard to steel herself from him.

  “You trusted me to get you down the cliff. You trusted me to get you out of the cave.”

  “I had no choice.”

  One side of his lip lifted in a smile. “Liar.”

  “I’m not a threat to you.”

  “Oh, but you are.” His words, barely whispered, sent her heart beating double time when his gaze lowered to her lips. “You’re definitely a threat, Elena Griffin.”

  He gently ran the pads of his fingers along her injured ankle sending chills racing along her skin. With barely a touch, he had her tied in knots. Imagine what it would be like if they kissed, really kissed, not just a brief meeting of the lips.

  Guy rose and walked to the door, saying, “I’ll have food sent up. You slept through the night, so I’m sure you’re famished.”

  Elena didn’t get a chance to respond as he was quickly out the door. She looked around her prison. At least it was cozy and warm.

  And her visitor handsome, strong, and so very tempting.

  Still the thought of being kept against her will left her feeling sick. If-no, when!—she left Dreagan, she knew in her soul she’d never see him again.

  And she wasn’t quite ready to let Guy disappear, not when she yearned for another kiss.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Guy walked away from Elena, each step like a punch in his gut. He’d wanted to take her in his arms and tell the others to bugger off as they fired their questions at her. He’d wanted to cover her body with his, to feel her softness and her heat.

  But more than that, he wanted to taste her lips again.

  She’d been afraid, but she had stood her ground. Yet when her eyes had touched his, he knew she sought someone to be on her side.

  Guy did believe her, but like the others, he knew there was something more going on with her and Sloan’s appearance on Dreagan land. He prayed it didn’t involve Elena. He liked her around the house, knowing she was close by if he wanted to see her.

  No one needed to know that he stayed in her room as she’d slept through the night. It had taken everything he had not to climb in bed with her and pull her into his arms for another kiss.

  When she’d opened her eyes and looked at him with such passion, with such need, all the blood had rushed to his cock. How he’d stayed in his chair, he didn’t know.

  He could’ve kissed her then. He could have taken her in his arms and pulled her
soft body against his, and she wouldn’t have refused him. He’d seen it in her beautiful sage green eyes.

  Her long, wavy dark blond hair had been mussed from sleep, her eyes drowsy, and her lips slightly parted. She had looked as if she’d just been thoroughly loved.

  Guy fisted his hands and walked down the corridor to Con’s office, where he knew the others waited. He rounded the corner and stopped, preferring to lean against the doorway than take a seat inside the office.

  “She likes you,” Con said when he spotted Guy.

  “I’m the only one no’ ramming questions down her throat.”

  Banan snorted. “Nay, you just rammed your tongue down her.”

  Con’s blond brows rose. “You kissed her.”

  “Nay,” Guy said as casually as he could. “She was scared witless when we found her, and we had to take her down the cliff to return.”

  “With her injury, she couldna do it herself,” Rhys said.

  Guy nodded. “So, I took her down on my back. She said she’d haunt me if she died, but if I got her safely down, she’d kiss me.”

  “And she did,” Banan said with a smirk. “Doona deny you didna liked it, Guy.”

  Guy shifted his gaze to Banan. Ever since Hal and Cassie were bonded, Banan had gotten even crankier. Hal was the first of them to have found his mate since the dragons left earth.

  It had been a rarity when the dragons were still here, but once they had left and the spell was put on the Kings, they all knew they would forever be alone.

  They had accepted it. Or had they? Hal hadn’t fought against the love he felt for Cassie. He had fought for Cassie.

  Guy hadn’t really understood what Hal went through before, but he was beginning to. It wasn’t like Guy to skirt his duties as a Dragon King, yet every time he thought of Elena, the first thought that came to his mind was to protect her.

  Against his own. Never before had he felt that. It unsettled him, just as Elena did. Her mere presence in the mansion drove him to distraction.

  “Who doesna like the kiss of a pretty girl?” Guy replied when he realized the others were waiting on him to answer.

  Banan lost all trace of anger and peered closely at Guy. “You feel something for her, do you no’? Is what happened to Hal happening to you?”