Smitten by the Dragon

by Tully Belle

  She’d spent half an hour before that searching the five floors for a sign where the dragons might be but hadn’t found anything. Not that she really expected to, if there was anything important, it would be upstairs were she was unable to go. For now.

  Ash hadn’t been angry with her when he’d found her in the training hall either. Did he believe it was normal for someone to want to explore their new surroundings? He was far too reasonable for his own good. She’d never met anyone so trusting.

  The seed of doubt and guilt sucker punched her right smack in the stomach.

  Caran sat on the bed and picked up the television remote, pointing it at the screen. She scrolled through the channels before settling on an infomercial. They were selling a blending machine that cut vegetables into any shape imaginable. Stars, sticks, rounds, triangles. She wondered who would want to eat a moon shaped radish. Did people still eat radishes?

  She sighed and turned off the television again. The distraction wasn’t working, it was merely delaying the inevitable. The fact was that no matter how she felt about Ash and the other’s here, they used dragons.

  Why? They were so dangerous, yet no one seemed concerned about that.

  The people here were nothing like she expected or was led to believe. Learning about their lives and backgrounds had raised a lot of questions about her own choices. They were just like her. Her road let to Princess because of Dean’s death, but what if that hadn’t happened? If things had worked out differently, perhaps she might have even ended up here. Did she feel that strongly about righting the wrongs of others? Her focus was on getting rid of dragons, but there were other causes just as important. Other wrongs that needed righting.

  When it came down to it, Princess and Dragonspark weren’t all that different. Not really. They both had something they believed in and would fight for those beliefs. It was just different at Princess. Tessa ran it with business like efficiency, and Mac ran Dragonspark like a big family. Neither was better than the other and they both had their merits. One thing though, is Tessa would never had had dinner with the members like Ash and Mac had. She didn’t mingle with the new recruits at all.

  And then there were her feelings about Ash. Strong, gorgeous, concerned about his family and the other members. She hadn’t expected to like him so much.

  It was still too early for her to trust those feelings with him though. He was nothing like Dean had been. Dean was more like Tessa - decisive, driven. It was he that had convinced her to choose a hospital in the city to do her residency rather than come back home to Greenslopes County.

  Her mother had never liked Dean, she complained that he didn’t understand the bond that family had and would put career ahead of people. That was where she was wrong—Dean always put her before anything else. She didn’t blame herself for his death. She blamed the dragon that had knocked down the building he was in, crushing him under layers of concrete.

  She had to stay strong. She was here for one reason, and she must follow that plan. She couldn’t trust her feelings, not when anytime she’d followed them in the past she ended up hurt. That wouldn't happen if she followed Tessa's model. Keep focused. Remember the ultimate goal, which was to keep people safe.

  It was becoming harder and harder to concentrate on her mission when she couldn’t check in and talk with Tessa. She’d need to find a way to call her and refocus, as her feelings about the people here were weakening her resolve. Tessa would remind her of what was important. Not the others here. Not Ash.

  They were all too nice to be caught up in this. It wasn’t fair.

  She’d have to sleep on it. Maybe she’d feel less conflicted in the morning once she had a good nights rest. She turned off the bedside lamp and closed her eyes hoping sleep would come quickly.

  14

  Ash hadn’t slept well. He’d checked on Lyson numerous times during the night and nothing had changed. Mac had come down around half and hour ago with breakfast and coffee and they’d both gone to check on Lyson again. How could Mac remain so calm? Ash couldn’t eat anything.

  “He hasn’t changed back,” said Ash, staring at the door to Lyson’s cavern. “I’m getting worried.” He paced to and fro, his hands clenching and unclenching, flicking them to try to release the tension.

  Mac frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s happened before. It isn’t unusual that he’s still in dragon form. Remember that time you stayed dragon for a week.”

  “Lyson is different. He always changes early.”

  “We’ll wait another day before we worry. It’s not a big deal, we’re not doing the job until later this week.”

  “Okay, we’ll give him another day. But I’m already worried. The signs indicated that he was transitioning, so why hasn’t he?”

  “You need to calm down. Give it more time.”

  “How am I meant to calm down?”

  “Go see Caran. She had a positive effect on you last time.”

  Ash stopped pacing and looked at his brother. “So now you’re encouraging me to see her. That’s a change.”

  “I just want you to focus. You’re overreacting.”

  “So you’re not worried?”

  Mac cocked his head to the side. “I’ll worry when it’s necessary. Right now, nothing has changed.”

  “Okay.” Ash sat down on the bed and ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, he could still change back today. I need to get my mind off it. Plus I have a training session this morning.”

  “Good. You need it.”

  Ash found Caran in the level four dining hall eating breakfast. She was talking with one of the members as he approached. It looked casual so he didn’t think he’d be interrupting an important conversation. She turned her attention to him and smiled, warming him from the inside. Mac was right, she did have a calming effect on him.

  “I hope you slept well?” he asked, as he slipped into the chair opposite.

  “Actually I did. The bed was really comfortable. Plus I needed to catch up on sleeping since I had a rather late one the previous night.” She grinned.

  “You’re refreshed and full of energy.”

  “I am. And what about you? How is your brother doing? Is he feeling better today?”

  Ash glanced at the girl she was sitting with who nodded and left the table. He could see that Caran found this intriguing, but she didn’t say anything about it.

  “Lyson’s still not feeling the best. Hopefully by this evening he’ll be well again.”

  “The offer to check on him is still there, you know.”

  “No need, but thank you anyway.” He reached over and took her hand entwining his fingers with hers. “I missed you last night.”

  “Oh really? Do go on.”

  “It would have been nice to wake up with you this morning. Have you in my arms, get between your legs.”

  “The day isn’t over yet.” She winked cheekily and squeezed his hand, sending a jolt straight to his cock and waking it up. Lyson could definitely wait—he needed to spend more time with Caran and get his mind of everything. Alone time was preferable but he’d take any he could get.

  “I’ll grab something to eat and tell you more about this place.”

  “I’ve already figured out most of it.”

  “I bet you have.” He stood up and walked over to the food buffet, grabbing toast, buttering it and biting it. With the slice of bread nestled between his teeth he grabbed a cup of coffee too. He looked back over to Caran and saw that she didn’t have a coffee. He wondered if she drank it or not. He made her a cup too, just in case.

  As he placed the mug down next to her he watched her expression. “I didn’t know whether you wanted one,” he said. “It’s black but I can fetch sugar, milk, or cream. I need it, thought you might too.” He placed his mug down but didn’t sit, waiting to see what she wanted.

  “Two sugars and cream,” she said. “Thanks.” He nodded and fetched them for her.

  Ash sat down and finished his breakfast, leavi
ng the coffee to last. “Now it’s your turn. What do you think we’re about? I’m curious.”

  She sipped from her mug and grinned. “Okay.” She looked around the room. “I know you said that you and your brothers do jobs for people, but you failed to mention that your business is actually Dragonspark. No wonder you didn’t tell me your last name.”

  “You kept things quiet at first too.”

  “Well, yeah, I did. But still, you should have known it was obvious the minute I walked in and saw the dragon mural on the ceiling.” She cocked a brow higher. “And you told me you weren’t famous.”

  “I said we weren’t celebrities, I said nothing about not having a reputation.”

  She placed her coffee down. “And an interesting reputation it is, Commander.”

  He grinned. She knew far more than she was letting on, but it didn’t seem to faze her. She clearly had no fear of dragons. Ash needed to figure out why that was.

  “So,” she asked. “Do you keep them nearby? Do they nest somewhere in the mountains? How do you control them?”

  He lifted his hands palms out in a mock surrender. “Whoa, a lot of questions. I can’t answer them all. Let’s just say that we don’t control dragons exactly. It isn’t like that. And we don’t use them unless we have to.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you have nothing to fear. They won’t hurt you while we are around. They’ve never hurt anyone. And thankfully we don’t use them for all the jobs we do.”

  “But they’re close by? You could call them whenever you wanted to?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tell you more than that.”

  She shrugged and seemed satisfied with that answer. “It’s impressive, I’ll say that much.”

  Ash grinned. “Yeah, it really is. Come on, I’m training the group today, did you want to join in?”

  Caran nodded. “Absolutely. That sounds like fun.”

  “It isn’t as fun as other things I could be doing right now.” He waggled a brow making her laugh.

  “Come on,” she said. “I want to see how you train. The famous Commander Ash Dragonspark. Maybe I’ll learn something. Then again maybe not, how am I to know how good you are?” She smirked and poked out her tongue.

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Then you’ll find out how good I am.”

  She leaned over and kissed him. “If you’re as good at teaching people as you are in bed, then I’m going to enjoy this session.”

  “Not nearly as much as I am.”

  15

  Caran stood at the back of the training hall. There were eight others and they were all mingling and talking with each other. A few people tried to draw her into conversation, but she was more interested in watching Ash stretch out than chat about anything.

  It was interesting to see everyone treat this more like an exercise class than life or death training. No one seemed bothered by the dragon issue, which she was still trying to wrap her head around. Surely they knew about the problems they caused. News channels reported extensively if there were any incidents, everyone knew. She’d made out that it wasn’t a big deal to Ash earlier because she wasn’t sure how far she could push it with him.

  Ash knew what they were capable of. He’d sworn that the ones they used hadn’t caused anyone any harm, but how could he be so sure? He wasn’t around them all the time. They only used them occasionally. It wasn’t possible that he could vouch for them when they could be up to anything out of sight.

  The only thing she knew was that she hadn’t heard of any tragedies around this area, which might mean he was able to control them, but she still doubted it. Dragons weren’t pets like a dog or cat. You couldn’t train them and you certainly couldn’t reason with them. They were natural killers.

  The only thing that made her feel comfortable about her conversation this morning was that he mentioned that they didn’t always use them. That meant if she was successful in finding them, and Princess were able to get rid of them, then his business wouldn’t suffer, he and his brothers could still make money and live they way they wanted.

  Ash gave her a quick wink before he turned his attention back to the group. He took them through various sparring and defensive moves. Jabbing and ducking. Caran was able to keep up easily enough; nothing was too difficult or strenuous. It was interesting that they didn’t use weapons in training like they did at Princess, but it made sense. This place wasn’t about hurting people, it was about righting wrongs. For a price, of course.

  After the training was over, Ash came up to her. He handed her a towel and she used it, surprised that she was sweating so much.

  “So what did you think?” he asked.

  “That you’re natural at leading people.”

  “You doubted that?”

  “No, I know how good you are at convincing others to follow you, especially when you take strange women you barely know up to the roof of a hotel to have your way with them.”

  He laughed. “I’m about to head to the showers, you want to join me?”

  “No can do, Ash.” Pete came up behind them. “I need the lovely young lady to show me how clever she is.” He was holding a clipboard and had a pencil tucked behind his ear.

  “Right, testing her medical knowledge. Surely she can shower beforehand?”

  Pete grinned. “Well, yeah, but she needs to be quick.”

  “I can be quick,” said Ash.

  Caran couldn’t help but smile but she held up her hands. “I can decide what I’m doing. I’ll have a quick shower, alone in my room, and then I’ll meet Pete to go over a few things.” She turned back to Ash. “We can meet up later,” she purred.

  “Look after her,” said Ash.

  “I can look after myself,” said Caran.

  “Oh, I can see that.” Ash grinned, cocking his head to the side.

  Pete led Caran away from the training room and up the stairs. He stopped at the third floor and told her he’d wait here. Caran nodded and quickly returned to her room to shower and change. When she came back he was still in the same spot waiting for her.

  “We don’t have a full set-up here,” he explained as he walked down the corridor. “The medical area consists of two rooms. Neither of them are stocked how we’d like because we’ve only used them for minor scrapes and injuries. Plus we don’t have the authority.” He looked her up and down. “Yet.” He stopped outside the first door and opened it.

  The room was small, around one hundred square feet, and had two rows of cabinets above a stainless steel table on the far wall. The cabinets were glass fronted and contained medicines, bandages and other supplies. Caran examined the cabinets so she could make a quick inventory of its contents in her head. Most of the meds here were ones you could get at any grocery store. Nothing you needed a prescription for. Very basic stuff. He was right that they needed stronger medicine if they were going to use this as a true medical center for the people here.

  In the middle of the room was a leather-look couch that would be more suited to a psychiatrist office than a medical center.

  “What’s in the second room?” Caran pointed to the adjoining door.

  “Three beds in there at the moment. The room is larger than this one. Our thinking was to use it like a ward for those recovering, although we’ve never had to. Most of the time we take people to the hospital if they need anything.”

  Caran nodded, turning back to him.

  “So what do you think?” asked Pete. “Is this somewhere you could see yourself?”

  “You mean like full time?”

  “Isn’t that the reason you’re here?”

  “Ash mentioned they could use a doctor, but he said nothing about me working here full time. I thought I was simply showing off my knowledge so Mac would approve of Ash bringing me here.”

  “Oh.” Pete looked at the clipboard blushing and pretended to read something off it. “I guess I’m getting ahead of mys
elf. How about we go through different emergencies and we’ll see what you can do?”

  “Sure, we can do that.”

  Caran had been with Pete all day. In truth, she’d enjoyed testing her knowledge. It had been a year since she’d been able to test her medical skills and she’d forgotten how much she missed it. At Princess she was only called occasionally to fix up a slashed arm or minor burn. Pete was asking about everything from broken arms to dislocated joints to severed fingers. It was exhilarating to talk about sutures and surgeries again.

  It was late when they finished up. Caran washed her hands thoroughly with the disinfectant and went to find Ash downstairs.

  “So doctor, how’d you go?” he asked when she approached.

  “Let’s just say if anyone get’s a toe sliced off, I’ll be more than happy to sew it back on.” She laughed thinking that he’d find the joke funny, but he all he did was raise an eyebrow and look at her like she was nuts. That made her laugh even more.

  “You need fresh air,” he said. “You’re going stir crazy.”

  “We’re going out?” If that were the case, she could finally make a call out.

  “Not exactly.” He took her hand and led her up the stairs. “Do you want to see higher?”

  “Right, we’ve had this conversation before. Are you going to tell me you have a bed on the roof here too?”

  “Not exactly.”

  They passed the fifth floor and she realized she was being led up to the private section. Her heart beat quicker with anticipation. Surely she could find something up here that would help her assignment.

  “Mac is up that way.” Ash pointed up the stairs to the next floor. “Lyson and I are on this level. There were two doors on either side of the landing. Ash led her to the room on the right.