by Shannon West
“Hello, Luca,” he said, his voice dark and seductive. “This bar is an interesting choice. Are you a part of this scene?”
“Me?” I looked around and gave him a lazy smile. “No…why? Are you disappointed?” Where the hell did that come from? I could feel a flush swarming up my neck and settling on my cheeks, and I dropped my head in confusion. He might decide to eat me at any second and not in a good way.
Dmitri looked me up and down speculatively and leaned over between the stools to rest his elbow on the bar. He was close, his tall, lean body hemming me in. He smelled good too, like soap and expensive cologne. Though he didn’t have a lot of bulky muscles like some kind of gym bunny, he had an awesome body. He was maybe six-two or so. I wondered how he looked in his shifted form and decided he must be impressive. I had never actually seen a Golden up close and personal before, but I’d seen pictures. I’d always believed that those pictures must have been enhanced, but now, I thought that it might be possible that they hadn’t done the Goldens justice if this guy was anything to go by. He was fucking gorgeous.
“I have to say I was surprised when I got your text,” he said, staring into my eyes. “Do you come to this place often?”
“No. Like I said. I’m not into all this.” I looked him up and down, stopping when my gaze reached the bulge in his groin. “But I could be persuaded if you’re asking.”
God, what’s wrong with me and where is this shit coming from? It had to be nerves. I gave a nervous little laugh to show I was joking, but I could feel my face flaming.
Dmitri smiled and lifted one perfectly shaped eyebrow, so slow and sexy that I lost my breath for a moment. “Oh?” Just that one syllable and my heart began a slow thud inside my chest. I got lost for a few seconds in his eyes as he leaned in closer. A little voice inside my head was reminding me this was a Golden and to be careful.
“Sure,” I said, my voice an octave higher than normal. “I’ll try anything once or twice,” I said. “But if it’s a problem for you, I’d completely understand.” I licked my lips nervously and I saw him watching me like I was prey.
“Now why would it be a problem for me?”
I just shrugged, way out of my depth, and he smiled at me. A little like I imagined a shark might smile at his next victim. “What you would or wouldn’t do doesn’t factor into this in any way, but it’s nice of you to share the information. Tell me, Luca. Is Artie Samboa your Dom?” He glared at me, seeming almost angry as he asked the question.
“What?” That surprised a laugh out of me. Just the thought made me queasy.
Artie Samboa wasn’t bad looking. He was, however, vicious and stupid, always a dangerous combination. And the injection of inferior human DNA when Artie’s dad mated with his meth-addicted human mom hadn’t helped his disposition one damn bit.
Even though I had known him most of my life and even gone to school with him for a while, we were never friends. Even as a little kid, Artie had always been in trouble, but I felt a little sorry for him back then, because he used to come to school with bruises on his face and once even a broken arm. Everyone, including the teachers, knew his dad beat him regularly. But his dad was a Black Dragon, and they were too scared of him to say anything. Blacks were abusive, quick to anger, and just plain evil. Their hearts were as black as their slimy scales. Like I said, I felt sorry for Artie, but at that time, I had too many of my own problems in that same area to worry about anybody else’s.
As he grew older, the beatings just seemed to make him meaner. Artie began to get a vicious look in his eyes that could literally make you shiver on the hottest day if you looked directly at him. In the last few years that look had turned predatory. It was a little like the Artie I had gone to kindergarten with had permanently checked out and something brutal had moved in and set up shop.
So I steered clear of Artie as much as I could. I hadn’t really seen him in a couple of years, so I was surprised when he had suddenly started coming around to see me in the last couple of weeks. He had actually tried to get me to hang out with him and his “friends” and insisted on coming by the store when he knew I was going on break. I had no idea why—like I said, we’d never been friends, and there was no way in hell Artie Samboa was attracted to me sexually. Hell, even if he had been, he couldn’t have ever admitted it. Artie was a huge homophobe and had no qualms about letting it be known.
Secretly, I’d always thought Artie was so far in the closet he couldn’t see daylight. I even wondered when he asked me to go out drinking with him one night after work if he had finally got up the nerve to stick a toe in and test the waters. I was kind of curious by this time to see what he might be up to so I agreed to meet him at a local bar. I ordered a beer, while Artie drank alarming amounts of tequila. He’d tried to get me to join him, but I just laughed, feeling a little nervous about pissing him off, and told him that tequila made my clothes fall off. The slightly disgusted look Artie had given me then let me know Artie was as much in denial about his sexuality as ever.
“I don’t know why you want to speak to me anyway,” I said, focusing back in on the agent. “As I keep telling you, I hardly know Artie.”
“I’m only here to ask you a few questions. I want you to be comfortable.”
“Oh, I’m comfortable. As much as I can be sitting next to a Golden.”
He looked a little surprised. “You don’t like Goldens?”
I grinned at him. “My dad’s a Red. What do you think?”
Reds and Goldens had always had bad blood between them. They were the two strongest breeds and therefore claimed the majority of the world’s treasure. They also shared the same territory—very uneasily and with a long tradition of stealing each other’s gold. In reality I don’t think there really was a nickel’s worth of difference between the Goldens and the Reds. Both cared more for their treasures than anything else, and as the old saying goes, treasure was only good for three things—hoarding, spending or trading for something that meant even more to you.
Dmitri’s eyes traveled over me again. “But you’re only half Red—for the sake of clarity. That makes you Spawn.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?”
I stiffened, not liking what he said, and he smiled. “Luckily, you’re good-looking enough that it doesn’t matter so much.”
Of course I knew how I looked. I owned a mirror. But I wasn’t conceited about it, like I was willing to bet he was. Looks were just a result of DNA. It wasn’t like it was an accomplishment or I’d done anything to earn them. I was cute and had curly hair that guys seemed to like, and I happened to have really long eyelashes. Not freakish or anything, but they were usually one of the first things people noticed about me. That and my blue eyes. It was no big deal to me, but some people thought it was a striking combination. I saw the Golden staring at me and he smiled.
“What’s the matter, Dragon-Spawn? Are you upset about something?”
I frowned even more fiercely. “Well, for one thing, I don’t like being called that name.”
“What? Spawn? But that’s what you are, right? Spawn is any mixture of human and Dragon.” He leaned in closer and sniffed me. “Mmm. You definitely have some human blood.”
I pulled away, uncomfortable with his closeness because of what it was doing to my dick. “I still don’t like that name.”
“Sorry. What should I call you then?”
“Something else.”
He fingered my hair. “Curly?”
“You’re kind of an asshole, aren’t you?”
“I don’t mean to be.”
“No? You coulda fooled me.”
“But what did I say?”
I gave him a good glare. “I don’t like silly nicknames. Or to be called Spawn. I’m a person, you know.”
He grinned. “Not exactly.”
I started to get up then but he caught my arm. “What does Artie Samboa call you? Does he feel misunderstood by pure-bloo
ds, too? Mistreated by them?”
“Look. I already told you, I barely know him.”
“But you are in his gang?”
“What gang? All I do is work at the store. It’s all I have time for.”
Artie had tried to get me in his gang. He told me that if I’d join up with him and his friends, he’d make sure I made plenty of money, much more than I currently made working at my “pissy little job.” But I knew what Artie did to make money, and I wanted no part of any of it.
Besides, “pissy” or not, I had waited a long time to get my job at the store. I knew it wasn’t a great job, but I was pretty much limited on what kind of work I could get, so I was grateful to Mr. Alvarez for hiring me.
Ever since I was a kid—well, after the last beating I got from my dad when he’d hit me in the head with a kitchen chair anyway—I got terrible spells where I was dizzy and had headaches. Like so bad that when I had one of them I expected to see dead relatives standing at the foot of my bed telling me to come to the light. That bad. It didn’t happen all the time, of course. I couldn’t have stood that. But the beatings were regular, and when the headache came, my dad would dose me with painkillers until it stopped. I don’t know where he got the drugs from—I never went to any doctors. But they were strong and knocked me on my ass for days at a time.
The severity of the pain and the drugs I had to take to help it limited my options as far as jobs went. Add to that the fact that employers kind of expected you to show up for work every day, and jobs were hard to find. After a particularly bad spell at school once, the teachers had called an ambulance. Before my old man could jerk me out of the ER, the doctors asked me if I’d ever had an injury of any kind. I’d laughed and asked how many he wanted to know about, because, when he was drunk, which was most of the time, my old man liked to knock me around for sport. Anyway, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. They wanted to do tests, but my dad said no. So the headaches, coupled with the fact I was Spawn, and nobody was exactly lining up to hire me.
I realized the Golden was staring at me, and I cleared my throat nervously. “I’m sorry. This whole thing is a waste of your time. I really hardly know the guy.”
“Now that’s not true, is it, Luca? Artie Samboa was seen talking to you in the alley by the store where you work three nights ago. And then night before last, he took you to a bar. What did you two talk about?”
My face got hot and I started to stammer. How the hell did he know this stuff? “I-I don’t remember. Nothing important.”
“You don’t remember.” Dmitri said. It wasn’t a question, but more like sarcasm. His tone made it plain he didn’t believe me.
“No. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. People don’t mess with Artie and live to tell about it.”
He leaned in closer and brought his lips to my ear. An electric charge jolted through my body at his closeness, and my breath left my mouth with a little puff of smoke. Dmitri whispered softly to me.
“I intend to ‘mess’ with him. You can give him that message for me next time you see him.”
“Give it to him yourself,” I said, surprised at my own boldness and fully expecting to be incinerated at any moment as he glared down at me. When it didn’t happen, I slid off the stool and headed for the door. He followed me, grabbing my arm.
“Why are you getting so excited? Has Samboa threatened you in some way? Are you frightened of him?” He looked around the bar and his eye fell on the bald guy with the boy on the leash, who was still watching us with an avid gaze. Dmitri’s eyes flashed. “You never answered my question. Is Samboa your Dom?” he asked in a tight, angry voice. Tiny flames danced in his nostrils.
“This was a mistake. Please—I have to go,” I said, jerking my arm out of his grip. My head was beginning to ache, and I felt like I just needed to get back to my room.
“Why don’t I take you over to one of those tables and we can finish talking? No one will bother us there.”
“No!” Realizing I’d shouted and attracted undue attention, I clamped my lips together and took a deep breath to calm myself. “Please…I’ve told you all I can. Please let me go.”
He smiled that charming smile and moved his hand, holding it up as if to show me that no harm had been done.
“Of course. Don’t get so stressed. Let me walk with you.”
I shook my head. “It’s absolutely not necessary.”
“I insist.”
“Really, I live literally two blocks away.”
“Then we don’t have far to go, do we?”
He really was the most infuriating man I’d ever met. I risked giving him a dirty look, and he smiled at me again, putting his hand on my elbow as if to guide me to the door.
I shoved him.
I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking—obviously I’d lost my damn mind, putting my hands on a pure-blood. A Golden. Shoving him, for God’s sake! I held my breath, wondering if I could make it to the door before he blasted me. I closed my eyes and waited for it, but when nothing happened, I finally opened one eye and looked up at him.
He was staring back at me, clearly shocked at what I’d done. I knew how he felt. All I could blame it on was one of my headaches coming on. Sometimes they made me a little crazy.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish.” he said in a low, grim voice, his eyes glittering at me.
I shook my head furiously. “No. No sir,” I said and then clapped my hand over my mouth as a little puff of smoke came out. It did that sometimes when I got nervous. A little spark of sanity had finally lit up in my brain, convincing me my best bet was to keep my mouth shut. I dropped my gaze and did my best to look contrite and totally non-threatening. Not a stretch, really.
The agent leaned in again and spoke softly to me. “You won’t get rid of me so easily, you know. I’ll keep coming until you…” he looked me up and down, “give me what I need. Will you do that, Luca?”
“I-I’ll try,” I whispered.
His words, or maybe his nearness, had caused my cock to stiffen, which surprised me so much that I let him grip my elbow again. I had no idea that near-death experiences were an aphrodisiac for me. In a smooth maneuver, he turned me around and pushed me to the door, still holding tightly to my arm. Deciding it would be undignified to struggle, I didn’t fight it, allowing the Golden to walk me outside. As soon as the door to the bar closed behind us, I eased my upper arm from his grip.
He allowed it and simply gestured for me to lead the way. I set off at a rapid pace but his legs were so much longer than mine that by the time we’d traveled the two blocks to the store, I was practically running to keep up, the silence between us broken only by my increasingly heavy breathing. I was relieved when we finally reached my building. I stopped outside the stairway leading up to my front door.
“This is it,” I said, with the last of my breath. “Thanks. I can make it upstairs by myself.”
He glanced up at the door and back at me. “I’d like to see you to your door. This is a bad neighborhood.”
“It’s okay,” I said, dancing nervously backward toward the steps. “I need to go in. Thanks though. And I really don’t know anything about Artie Samboa or any of his business. Really I don’t.”
“Well, now see…” he said, looking me slowly up and down. “I think you know more than you’re saying.”
I stood still and shivered from the look he was giving me. “I truly do not.”
Dmitri stepped toward me and frowned down at me. “What is it? Why are you so scared of this guy? He doesn’t beat you, does he?”
The words surprised a laugh out of me. He narrowed his eyes. “No,” I said. “I’m not scared of him. If I was going to be scared of someone, I’d be scared of you.” I realized what I’d said and glanced up to see if he did.
He looked shocked. “Why do you say that?”
“The way you’re looking at me—and the fact you’re a Golden.”
Goldens had a reputation for being the mo
st out-of-control of all the pure-bloods when it came to breeding humans and Spawn. See, the one thing that all pure-bloods could agree on was their attraction to humans, and that carried over to Spawn, who were half-human. So even though they felt that we were far beneath them on a social scale, we were a guilty pleasure to mate with, and they loved to fuck us. And Goldens were the worst by far.
Since pure-bloods didn’t limit themselves in any way, they created the very thing they said they reviled—Spawn. And of course, the problem with Spawn was that after we were born, there we were—a constant reminder of how pure-bloods like this Golden hadn’t been strong enough to resist temptation. It was all part of the perverse nature of Dragons. They hated us for our very existence—for which they were responsible.
I raised my chin defiantly. “I know what you think of me. Of all the Spawn. Yet right now, you’re dying to fuck me up against the nearest wall, whether I’m willing or not.”
Dmitri stared down at me for a long moment, looking uneasy and shifting his feet. I wanted badly to steal a look at the bulge in his jeans, but I didn’t dare. “You don’t know anything.”
“You’re right. I don’t. Sorry—it was just an observation. I’ll shut up now.”
He made a little growling noise, stepping closer, pulled me roughly into his arms and those lush, perfect lips came down over mine in a frantic, devouring kiss. His hands moved down to cup my ass, and I curled my fingers into his shirt and clung to him. He kissed my cheek, my ear, my nose and then moved back to my lips again. He pulled my hips in tight to grind against him. I was hugging him so tightly I didn’t think he’d ever shake me off. His knee wedged between my thighs and he pulled me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist. He moved to push me up against the wall and then spent some quality time kissing me some more. His cock was straining against me, and it was getting harder to breathe.
“I want you,” he moaned against my lips.
I looked up at him, out of breath and out of my mind, because I said, “Take me then.”