“Where are you?” the man asked, much more tense this time. “What’d you do to him? If you hurt him in any way, I will find you, and I will make sure you suffer a fate worse than death.”
“Where have I heard that before?” I muttered stubbornly. “Your threats are weak.”
I got combative when I was nervous. Did I mention that before?
The man growled and I decided that was enough teasing.
“We’re at a studio parking lot in the business district downtown. Corner of Lexington and Kentucky,” I finally said after my senses came back to me. “I’m going to leave him propped up against the side of the building, okay?”
I hung up before he could reply, and I looked at the man slumped in my seat.
There was no way I could move him by myself, so I looked at the corner where the old man who tried to feed me every night usually stood smoking and smiled.
“Mr. Chang!” I said loudly. “Can you help me for a minute?”
Five minutes later, Ian was propped up as best as he could get against the building, and I was starting my truck and backing out of the parking lot.
After a quick wave to Mr. Chang, I peeled out of the parking lot and drove straight for the last place Ian would ever think to look for me.
His place.
It was big. He’d never find me.
I’d use the time while he was looking for me to come up with a better plan. Maybe once I could think straight, I could come up with something more plausible.
Until then, I was too fucking scared.
Plus, I had a key.
Something told me that anywhere else I decided to go, he’d find me.
If I used my credit cards or bank card somewhere, it was likely he could trace me through them.
I had to go somewhere that was free.
It was a good idea…right?
Chapter 3
People…not a fan.
-Ian’s secret thoughts
Ian
“Get the fuck off me,” I said through clenched teeth.
Keifer stepped back and glared.
“You got yourself knocked out by a girl?” Keifer asked. “What were you doing to her? Trying to force yourself on her?”
My fists clenched in indignation.
I just stared at my king and thought about never telling him anything ever again.
So I had fucking kinky desires. So fucking what! I never did a goddamned thing without the explicit consent of the other party involved.
And just because he’d walked in one fucking time when he heard my sex partner screaming ‘no’ wasn’t my fault. The girl had laughed when I’d been pulled off her, and she’d laughed even more when she’d explained to Keifer that it was all consensual.
That was really why I didn’t live at the sanctuary with them.
Once was enough to be interrupted during sex.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Keifer growled.
He grabbed the scarf that was miraculously still around my neck and, on instinct, I jerked away.
His hand held onto the scarf, though, exposing my neck to his gaze.
“Motherfucker,” Keifer growled.
I sighed and stood up, my feet feeling like limp noodles as I backed away from him.
“Get off me,” I said, lifting my hand. “You’re giving me a fuckin’ headache.”
“Do you have your powers?” Keifer persisted.
I sighed.
“No,” I answered.
“Why are you so calm about this?” he asked.
I gave him a look.
“Because it’s a normal process,” I answered him.
His eyes narrowed.
“How do you even know about this?” he asked. “I never told you.”
I blinked in surprise.
“Do you think we’re all stupid?” I asked him.
He didn’t reply.
“You do, don’t you?” I asked. “Well, let me tell you, we’re not. We know what goes on. Everyone does. The men and women. The fucking servants. And the way y’all fight and fuck so loud doesn’t help keep it a secret, either.”
Keifer’s face darkened to a mottled red.
“That doesn’t explain how you know,” he said. “And from what I remember reading, only the members of the royal blood mate. You’re not of royal blood. I would know if I had a brother walking around out there who I hadn’t met yet.”
My stomach pinched.
“Psychometry,” I said.
His eyebrows furrowed.
“What?” he asked.
I smiled.
“I know everything. If you’ve ever touched it, I know. If I want to, anyway,” I said smoothly. “And honestly, I didn’t really want to know this time, and I usually try to respect everyone’s privacy. But I have no control over what I learn,” I said blankly. “I may not be of royal blood but I have my own dragon and apparently, that’s all I need to have a predestined mate.”
That was my only thought.
I’d have freaked the fuck out had this happened without my knowledge.
This morning when I’d woken up and felt off, as well as later in the morning when I realized that I couldn’t ‘feel’ anyone, I’d had a minor freak-out.
But then I remembered Keifer’s mating, as well as Nikolai’s. And I’d instantly calmed.
Then promptly freaked out again over the fact that I was mated.
I’d left without another thought, going straight to Wink’s house to confirm my suspicions.
Last night I’d been drawn to her. But this morning, after seeing her again, it’d taken everything I had not to pull her into my arms.
And to see my mark on her neck…that’d been everything.
I wasn’t even ashamed that she had my handprint on her neck.
Territorial didn’t even begin to describe what I felt.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” Keifer said stiffly.
I shrugged.
“I never signed up for anything that said, specifically, what I did and didn’t have to tell you,” I said, glaring at Keifer.
I was so fucking tired of being treated like I was an outsider.
I did just as much work as the rest of the fucking dragon riders. In fact, I likely did more.
Yet, not one of those motherfuckers would ever do anything for me the way they’d do it for another one of the riders.
I got up and started walking, heading for the bus stop.
If I remembered correctly, the buses ran hourly, even this early in the morning.
“Where are you going?” Keifer asked.
“The bus stop,” I answered.
“Why aren’t you riding Mace?” Keifer asked in confusion.
I looked over at my dragon.
“Because he pisses me off,” I answered.
Kiefer didn’t answer, and I didn’t bother to wait for him to come up with a reason that I had to stay.
I had a woman to find.
Not that it’d be very hard.
Not all of my powers left me. That, or I’d already started getting them back.
Either way I could see exactly where she went, so I could follow her very easily.
What surprised me, though, was the fact that she went to my house.
I could’ve guessed a thousand different places as to where she would have gone, and my place wouldn’t have even made the list.
Color me fucking surprised.
***
I walked through the door and immediately noticed the difference.
Normally when Wink had been in my place, the scent of her was faint.
This time, I would’ve been able to tell she was here even if I hadn’t known she was.
The smell of her shampoo, as well as the lotion she used, seemed to permeate the air, almost like it was circulating through my ventilation system.
It was intoxicating.
And arousing.
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I didn’t bother to hide my steps.
She would hear me.
She was up in the loft, and although she was trying valiantly to hide, I could see her shoes.
So, I went about tossing my shirt, seeing as it was covered in sweat, walked into the kitchen, and started cooking breakfast.
It was only nine in the morning; it was still a good time to eat.
I would have reconsidered had it been a little later.
I hated when there was that lull between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner.
I never knew whether to eat or not.
Most of the time I didn’t.
“You know I’m here, don’t you?” she asked softly from the top of the stairs.
She was looking at me from between the slats of the landing, and I nodded absently as I grabbed a blob of butter with a spatula and plopped it down into the pan.
“How?” she asked.
“Followed your trail,” I answered.
“The same one that you followed of that murderer?” she asked softly.
“Yep,” I answered, reaching for the eggs.
By the time I got the bacon out of the frying pan, and all the eggs cooked, she was sitting at the bar.
“Your shirt is off,” she observed.
I looked down at my chest, and then up at her face.
“Would you look at that,” I said with as straight of a face as I could manage. “It is gone. Wow.”
She sighed.
“I don’t know what I did. But I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
It was a statement, not a question.
I didn’t bother to reply.
She sniffled, and I looked up sharply.
And to my horror, I saw the first tear slip down one cheek.
Another tear soon followed.
“You’re crying?” I asked in outrage.
I didn’t handle tears well.
There was something about them that had the power to undo me.
“You can ignore me,” she said. “It’s just hormones.”
“Hormones?” I asked.
“You know…hormones. It’s that time of the month. It just happens,” she said flippantly.
“So there’s no reason for the tears…you’re just doing it,” I observed.
She nodded.
“It happens. A lot. Sometimes I cry because I need to, like after I’ve seen a sad video on YouTube. Or sometimes I hear a song that I really like, and the beauty of it moves me to tears,” she explained.
“So you’re crying now, not because anything’s amiss, but because you’re a girl,” I said. “Do I have that correct?”
She shrugged, causing me to sigh.
“That means nothing to me. If you’re going to speak girl, you’re going to have to give me a cheat guide or something. I never had a single female in my life, besides my sister, and that was a very long time ago,” I told her.
She glared at me, the tears gone.
“You’re not very nice,” she observed.
I knew that.
I couldn’t help it, either.
“I was raised in an orphanage,” I said. “I have absolutely no tact. If you want hearts and flowers, you’re going to have trouble getting that from me.”
“Who says that I want that from you?” she challenged. “I’ve only known you for a very short period of time. Not even long enough to form a valid opinion of you or your character.”
I sighed.
“Did you look in a mirror yet?” I asked her.
She stiffened and squirmed.
“No,” she lied.
My brows rose.
“You didn’t?” I asked. “Not even a little bit?”
She was cute when she lied.
Her nose had a small upturn to it, meaning I knew exactly when she started to lie because a little crease would appear on the bridge of her nose as she concentrated on what to say.
“Fine,” she snarled. “What’d you do to me?”
I laughed.
“I have no fucking clue,” I said honestly. “Magic, I guess.”
She pursed her lips in disgust.
“Seriously?” she asked. “That’s all you’ve got? Magic?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know what else to call it,” I told her.
“Prove it,” she challenged.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Of course you would say that. Because, why wouldn’t you?” she wondered. “If I was trying to lie about how you got a tattoo that I put there, I’d lie and say it was magic, too. Although I’d have a backup plan in case you didn’t fall for it.”
I snorted.
“Have you ever heard of dragon riders?” I asked her.
She nodded reluctantly, sliding down onto the ledge and hooking both of her arms through the ladder that led up to the top.
“Of course I have,” she answered once she was situated. “What about them?”
It wasn’t often that I found someone that didn’t know anything about them.
Then again, the majority of the people I came into contact with were the types who wanted to do us harm.
I was what you would call an enforcer.
The person who made sure that the dragon riders, as a whole, didn’t get into trouble in any way.
If something happened, I was dispatched to take care of it.
If there was a breach at the sanctuary, I was the first one to investigate it.
Which was also another reason why I was living on the outskirts of the sanctuary and not actually in the sanctuary.
I wanted to keep my ear to the ground, and I didn’t want to deal with the fucking rules and regulations that were required of me when I was living on Sanctuary land.
Such as watching the younglings.
I wasn’t often in the mood to deal with them. Not because I didn’t like them, per se, but because they made me wish I had those rose-colored glasses on that they did, when it came to this world.
Then there were the women who showed up whenever the fuck they felt like it. Such as Nikolai’s new woman.
She was a constant pain in my ass, and she brought Keifer’s woman along for the ride.
I didn’t like the fact that they paid so much attention to me. It felt wrong, like my heart hurt, and I didn’t want anything to do with that. When the heart became involved, things never worked out right.
Such as when my sister had been adopted and I wasn’t.
I loved my sister with all my heart, and she’d been the one thing that had kept me from going crazy our first ten years together.
But then our parents had died, and instead of grieving, I had more worry piled on top of my already over-burdened young shoulders.
“You’re stalling,” the woman currently trying to break into my heart said.
I grimaced.
“I’m a dragon rider.”
Silence followed my announcement. So much of it, in fact, that I had to stop what I was doing with the eggs and look up to make sure she hadn’t fainted from the news.
She hadn’t.
And she was looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Say what?” she asked.
I scowled at the incredulity that was tinging her voice.
“You heard me,” I said. “Your eggs are finished.”
She started scooting down the ladder, turning around and presenting me with her perfect ass as she maneuvered.
“How’d you know what I like?” she asked.
“You make them every day you clean here,” I said. “Just figured that was the type you liked the best.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That still doesn’t explain how you know I like them fried, unless you’ve watched me.”
I chose to stay silent.
“Ian…” she said. “You’re not going to tie me up in the basement and torture me sexually, are you
?”
I blinked.
“I don’t have a basement,” I said smartly, scratching my head in confusion.
“I noticed you didn’t say anything about the sex torture part,” she observed dryly.
I sighed.
“I’m not going to kill you. Nor harm you in any way,” I told her. “You were the one who showed up at my place, not the other way around.”
She didn’t like what I had to say, and chose to tell me so with a glare.
I turned around to the sink to hide my laughter, dropping the pot I’d used to cook the eggs down into the sink before turning back around once I had it under control.
“This is good,” she said. “Now convince me about your magic.”
I pulled up my sleeves and pointed out where she’d touched me earlier.
“Look familiar?” I asked her, indicating the burn imprint of her hand.
Her lips thinned.
“Now look at your arm,” I ordered her.
She reluctantly pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, and her eyes widened.
“You’ve turned me into a mutant!” she cried.
I sighed and leaned against the counter, eyeing her.
“I don’t know where you come up with this shit,” I said. “But, if you’d just give me a chance to explain before you start name calling, some of this would be solved.”
She growled, and it was so cute that my cock actually twitched.
“Fine. You have five minutes before I’m leaving,” she snapped.
I chose to explain, despite her bitchy attitude.
“I’m a dragon rider. I first came into my powers when I was nineteen, which was a tad earlier than most dragon riders do,” I said. “My powers that I’ve gained from my dragon, Mace, are nowhere near what the other dragon riders have acquired.”
“So, what are they?” Wink snapped.
I smiled, knowing I had her.
“Well, you used one of them on me today. Rapid energy depletion,” I said.
She blinked.
“I used it?” she questioned.
I nodded. “Figured it out about a half second before I was out. Should’ve seen it coming. I knew you had my powers.”
“So, what else?” she pushed.
I smiled and ducked my head so she couldn’t see my lips lift.
“I can see anything that’s wrong with the body and heal it. Kind of like combining an EKG, MRI, CAT scan and x-ray all in one,” I continued.
Oh, My Dragon Page 3