Dragon Heart

by Susan Arden

  “Did you mean to do that?” she asked.

  “No … yes,” he muttered, taking hold of her hand. “Shay, we need to talk. When I get off tonight. Can you wait up for me?”

  “You’re covering my shift. Of course I’ll be up.” She slowed and faced him. “Everything okay?”

  Staring down into her glimmering eyes, his mouth went uncharacteristically dry. Shay made whatever he wanted to say suddenly catch in his throat and he coughed. Damn. He could bark out orders to a hardcore platoon, and this woman had him fumbling. Badly. He raked his fingers through his hair, then scrubbed his hand down his cheek, wanting to slap his own face. Snap out of it.

  A bleep went by, barely noticeable except to his ultra-perceptive senses. Maybe that’s why having a conversation around here was next to impossible. So many nosy neighbors always homing in. Christ. He’d lived in a close community but had forgotten about how everyone was in everyone else’s business. “Ya know there’s something called cable television,” he snapped, loud enough for whomever was careening about to hear.

  “What are you talking about?” Shay asked, shaking her head.

  “It’s like Grand Central Station around here. Hard to believe you don’t get a little pissed at how other folks are nosier than hell.”

  “Oh that,” she said and squeezed his hand. “You get used to it. I guess.”

  “Standard operating procedure could use some tweaking here in Harmony,” he grumbled, pulling her against him. “I don’t need a chaperone where you’re concerned.

  “Maybe you don’t, but I like having my own personal escort. Sometimes.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “You? I’m learning. But for months it’s been me and me alone. And late at night, it gets kinda lonely out here solo.”

  He glanced around the parking lot, his chest tightening. Fuck, he’d had his head up his ass these last months while Shay had been here. Alone. He’d been lonely, too, but he wasn’t a woman who had to worry about being overpowered. His damn pride had choked the sense out of him. He should have come for her sooner, instead stewing and sulking. The softness of Shay’s body compounded his guilt a million times over, especially when she leaned into him and he felt her rounded belly. “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. Coming here was my choice. Everything I’ve done since the summer has been my choice. Because I had the freedom to decide, I’m not sorry where I ended up. Not one bit. I would have been miserable if I’d stayed in Denver, and who knows what would have happened? That SOB Dimitri really pulled a number on my family. What I can’t believe is how my father could have fallen for the load of crap that Dimitri was slinging.”

  He stiffened and wrapped his arm around her shoulder as he glanced around the parking lot. Yeah, he didn’t get the sense that these nosy Nellies were up to harming anyone—lurking to keep the peace. But what he wanted to share wasn’t their business. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  After she closed her apartment door, he picked her up and carried her into her bedroom and laid her on the mattress. “Baby,” he grunted, kneeling next to her. “I don’t think your dad has been himself for the past year. Richard was—is under an incantation. Not unheard of, especially for someone like Necrodemas with his connections in the black market. They sell all sorts of shit there.”

  Shay’s brows drew together. “Why didn’t I think of it?”

  “It’s not the first conclusion to draw since your father wasn’t acting outrageous in his council duties. The idea crossed my mind in how strange your parents were behaving with regards to bartering you off in marriage.”

  She tried to sit up but he climbed over her body and pinned her beneath him. “Does Shawn realize? We’ve got to tell him.”

  “Ssshhh,” he whispered, seeking to undo her worry. “I have and he had your parents submit to an evaluation, confirming it’s a strange spell. Explains why your mom agreed to you marrying Necrodemas and that was that fucker’s mistake. He was greedy in the degree he exerted his influence over your parents, swaying them away from what was in your best interest. It threw up all sorts of red flags. When your brother asked me, I provided a contact. I only wish it had been sooner.”

  “Why didn’t Necrodemas put a spell on me?”

  “Don’t know. Just be glad he didn’t.”

  “And you’re sure my mother is going to be fine?”

  He grimaced under the weight of the uncertainty. “I hope so. It’s the reason your mom is in recovery. Breaking a spell is dicey and laborious. Last I heard, Shawn hired my contact. A woman from England. Sherry Delacroix. She lives just outside Denver. Have you ever met her?”

  “No. I don’t know any witches.”

  “She came highly recommended from Noah, a guy on my security team, and she seems competent. Spell breaking takes time.”

  “Is that the same guy you were talking to? The night I drugged you?”

  He cocked his head. “Yep. That was pretty underhanded. Woke up the next morning in a state. My head felt amazingly awful. I’ll have to spank your ass for that as well. You deserve it.”

  “You’re acquiring some list there.”

  “Possibly.” A bolt of possessiveness flared within him. “Marry me, Shay. I’ll protect you and you’ll never be alone again.” The timing felt synchronous and he didn’t overthink, didn’t fight.

  “But you’re a dragon,” she said, her voice twisted with pain and no longer husky and calm. “You don’t want me. What we have is no big deal. I heard you say exactly that on the phone to Noah. One day all this playing at adventure will get old. What is it that you want from me? I can’t be a plaything for you, Lord Herensuge.” She tried to wrench free of him.

  “Just what do think you I’m saying?”

  “Words. Easy to say.”

  “Not for me,” he snarled.

  “I get what you’re offering me. You think I need your name for our children. That’s so old-fashioned. Maybe a hundred years ago when you were a boy, it was semi-required. But not now. Unmarried women have children all the time.”

  “Not my mate. And not my children. You are going to marry me and I’m going to be by your side.” He felt his whole body heat and his heartbeat accelerated. Goddammit! He wasn’t going to have a meltdown over the fact that when he finally popped the question, she reacted exactly as he’d expected. He inhaled a ragged breath and rolled off her. He stood, staring down at Shay, and scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “You’re mine. That won’t ever fucking change. I know you feel what I feel. We’re linked.”

  She sat up without breaking eye contact. “Well, maybe Mr. Over The Top, that’s one of the problems. I’m not your anything. I’m my own person!”

  CHAPTER 10

  She sat on the mattress for several long minutes after Drake had left or rather stormed out. Suffocated is how Shay felt. Abso-the-hell-lutely, she couldn’t breathe. He’d proposed and instead of discussing it like a normal person, she’d heard only one message and met his possessive fire and with her own brand of flame. Her heart’s staccato rhythm beat a loud, blaring run for the hills. Now, with adrenaline spiking her bloodstream, her whole body was a churning mess of confusion mixed with frustration and doused with liberal amounts of anger. She didn’t know if she was more upset with Drake or herself.

  She was overdue to let off some steam.

  She headed for the front door. Yeah, she noticed the flickering bursts of energy that Drake had mentioned. Snap! If she left on a run, those jokers would probably go blabbering to Solomon and Drake, and she’d have an escort just like in Lisbon. She snorted silently. And just like in Lisbon, she’d ditch her chaperones. She grabbed her sneakers off the chair and glided back inside. One of the ways she’d learned to outmaneuver her security team was to do things that weren’t expected. Not once had she used the back door to her apartment. That entrance was stockpiled with used barrels that one day Solomon intended on making into some sort of outdoor seating area for the spring and summer.
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  Tonight she’d do a jog to the edge of town, stow her clothes and then she’d head to the deserted state park and out to the swamps in leopardess form. No one would bother her out there. It had been ages since she’d run unrestricted. Since becoming pregnant, she didn’t want to risk being naked in her human figure but tonight, she needed to be free. Being in her primal form would renew her and might also help calm her enough to act rationally and explain to Drake her confusion at having gone from college student to heiress to runaway—and now on the brink of motherhood. So many hats, but none helped provide her with a heads up on who she was as an individual.

  Would the real Shay Marie Barclay like to stand up? How can I now leap into becoming the wife of a man—excuse me, a dragon? Talk about doing the full monty.

  She changed into leggings and a sweatshirt, socks and sneakers. Softly she opened the back door, which overlooked an open field. There were no bleeps of light and she slunk down and descended the stairs, hoping that the Viking vampire town criers were off doing something important like sharpening their fangs for Halloween in nine months. Keeping watch over her was most assuredly a waste of their time.

  Ah, hell. Why take a chance? On the last step, she picked up a large rock, then another and another. She crept to the corner of the building and low and behold. There were Kee and Carl, leaning against the redwood fence and smoking. They spoke in what sounded like a mixture of English and Danish but could have just as easily been Swedish or Norwegian. She heaved the rocks across the parking lot and aimed for the trash dumpster. The rocks hit the target and came down, sounding like gunshots. She watched Kee and Carl vanish into thin air, presumably now over at the dumpster.

  And that’s how a girl outsmarts a pair of guys. Worked like a charm every time. She wanted to congratulate herself further but she’d better go while the going was good.

  She hightailed it across the field, not even breaking a sweat when she reached the road, sprinting past a stand of cypress, past a gnarled massive live oak, and the shadows of the swaying moss. The brisk evening breeze made running that much more enjoyable and the few stars dusting the sky looked like bits of glittery eye shadow she’d once spilled on a black lacquer bureau in her room back home in her parents’ house. She ran over the flat terrain—this was nothing like the muscle pumping runs she’d traversed up in the Rockies.

  What if what Drake said was true? That her parents were under some sick spell and they’d be better soon. She prayed that she’d return home and find her parents were back to normal, recovered, and wanted her happiness? It would have been a horrible injustice if she’d married Dimitri and his less than stellar lineage under these circumstances?

  She jogged onward and flinched at a muffled yip. She glanced in the direction of the sound and noticed the twinkling red glare of several pairs of eyes that blinked and stared back at her from the darkness. Out here, on the edge of town, there wasn’t much except for farmland and a large cluster of cypress trees up ahead. Where were those bikers located? Perhaps this was where they were camped out.

  She edged away from the stand of trees and turned to follow the path leading toward the fields. On the other side of the open land lay the edge of the state park and a swamp. She could outdistance most animals if she could get into her primal form. She’d have to strip off her clothes, and she glanced around, sniffing the air. Better not think too much on that one.

  Over there were several trees! Shay cut back toward the cypress rather than risk being surrounded in an open field. That one. She spotted a tree with low-lying branches. Sure as hell, glowing eyes flickered closer, following in her wake. Dammit! She wasn’t going to stand there and chart distance-to-object ratios. Picking up her pace, she sprinted to the cypress. At the base of the trunk, she stretched but the branches were beyond her reach. Jumping, she grasped a branch and kicked her feet against the trunk, hauling herself upward, using her upper body strength.

  Again she grabbed the next branch then another as she scrambled up into the tree. When she was high enough to feel safe, she perched on a branch and pulled off her sweatshirt and kicked off her shoes. The baying of a wolf from below sent chills over her skin and she felt the rumble of a roar materialize from her chest and throat. The leopardess inside her did not take kindly to being threatened. Long two-inch claws erupted from her fingertips and her canines broke free from her gums. Off came her socks and then she heard a man’s voice.

  A man wearing leather from neck to foot had his face upturned and stood staring at her. His skin was so pale he glowed like skim milk. Unblinking, his cold bluish-white eyes resembled liquid nitrogen, freeze burning a path across her body. Every hair on her body stood up. The shock of seeing him made her jerk and hug the tree.

  “Miss Barclay,” he said. “You’re outside the protection of Harmony once you left the town borders. All the way out here with no warding and no one to help you. Come on down. Don’t make me come up there and get you. I will, you know, and it won’t be like the last time met.”

  She didn’t recall ever meeting him. “Who the hell are you?”

  He laughed. “Mr. Necrodemas sent me to retrieve you. He doesn’t care if you’re harmed in the bargain. So please, why not make this easy on both of us?”

  Dimitri was behind this gang coming to Louisiana? She sniffed the air and perceived a rank odor that made her nose twitch. She shivered at the recognition—he was that driver who’d stared at her nonstop during one of Dimitri’s parties; and then again she’d sniffed this scent in the Mony parking lot. The neighborhood watch had gotten it wrong. He was only part wolf. This was Dark Fae stench. A gypsy, not the usual type, but that was going off her limited knowledge of the Light and Dark Courts. No one she knew had much experience with either since Fae were unpredictable. Capricious during good times, but could just as quickly become savage, lacking any and all emotional depth.

  Several headlights glowed from the road. Bikers. Why weren’t they in wolf form?

  Shit. No time to waste wondering about that mystery. She steadied herself, standing up on the branch, and using her toes to grip the limb, she peeled her leggings down her hips and off one leg at a time. The gypsy Fae directly below her whistled a slow catcall. Laughter erupted and she noticed the flickering of more red glaring eyes around the base of the tree trunk. She didn’t care that she was almost naked as she felt her whole body began to transform. Her shoulders and hips broadened and her spine elongated; she cradled her belly, worried that her babies might get squished. Rapidly, her legs and arms shortened, and she easily balanced on the bough. Then the final change as her pelt of spotted fur broke free: her skull altered shape with her jaw now more than pronounced as she roared a warning to the gypsy Fae.

  As a leopard, leaping thirty feet was simple, but where to land to give her the best advantage? Shay lifted her head and peered outward, flattening her eyes and using her night vision. With her keen leopard sight, she memorized the shape of the horizon and points along the terrain. She panted, to further tease out the nighttime swamp scents and confirm the view. She wasn’t worried about the bikers nor the wolves if she could get a head start. It was the gypsy Fae she was leery of. No way in hell could he touch her, sap her life force—he’d kill her children.

  She crouched and burst from the cypress tree, landing on her forepaws and then coming down onto her hind legs without breaking stride. A black wolf leapt in her path and she snarled, lifting her paw and raking her claws across his muzzle. He whined, and she barreled forward with her two hundred pounds of feline force and trounced him. Would have crushed his windpipe if he’d tried to stall her progress. Luckily for him, he ended up in an irrigation ditch, and she heard the sound of the bikers, gunning their engines, and the growl of wolves behind her. She burst through the field of swaying cordgrass and leapt into the air, spanning a long arc over several fallen logs, and dove into a canal. With her center of gravity a bit off, she ended up doing a semi belly flop. Still as a leopardess, swimming and running were as natural as br
eathing and eating and she paddled, ever watchful for gators. A head of one bobbed to the surface, a shifter she thought she recognized from the bar, but she couldn’t be sure. The gator didn’t track her, just stared and blinked … or winked. She noticed several other gators appear and form a line then recede beneath the surface where a few air bubbles floated.

  A pack of gray wolves howled and she clambered out of the canal, onto the opposite bank and shook her coat, shaking water droplets in all directions. She glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of the gypsy Fae pointing and the wolves diving into the black murky canal water. Stupid Fae, she snarled, and heard the first yip of a wolf. Then another and another down in the swirling black water. The gators weren’t as nice to the wolves as they’d been to her. That’s what good bartending skills could get a chick. She gave one more shake and tore off, bounding up an embankment toward drier terrain, away from the marsh and prickly grass. A cell tower with twinkling lights was the only thing noticeable on the horizon besides the mangrove marshes that reminded Shay of fingers pointing up out of the dirt. If she stayed on the high ground, it would be a heck of lot easier to navigate. She swung around, hunkered down, and prepared to leap until she stared at the bright spotlights on top of a Jeep swamp buggy, hauling ass toward her.

  • • •

  Drake closed out the register, counting the bills and rubber banding them together before placing them and the receipts in the bank bag. “Here you go,” he said to Solomon.

  “Smooth sailing,” the bear shifter replied, turning off the interior lights and lumbering next to him down the back hallway.

  He nodded, removing his apron and tossing it into the bar laundry bag at the back door. “So far, so good.”