No way would she be one of those women who used tears to get their way or to make someone feel bad. She’d always remember Vasili with love and caring. And she hoped he’d keep the memory of their time together in his heart as well when they were parted.
…
Vasili’s dragon was furious. Not at Abigail, but at him for mishandling things. The beast rippled and roared, trying to take control, but he wouldn’t let it. There simply wasn’t enough room in their cabin. He’d end up injuring her if he shifted. In the end, that was the only thing that kept his dragon side in check.
He’d hurt her without meaning to. The past attacks by the Knights weren’t important to him. They were simply that—the past. But in not telling her about them, he’d caused her to withdraw from him, to make her believe she wasn’t important to him beyond the physical pleasure they’d shared.
Before his very eyes, he’d watched and felt her withdraw from him, even though she was still seated in the same spot less than an arm’s length away.
He might be thousands of years old, but he’d never had a relationship with a modern woman, not one like what he wanted with Abigail.
He reached out and cupped her face between his hands. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to upset you, to make you think what we shared was not important.”
Her eyes were luminous, and she swallowed heavily but shed no tears. His Abigail was so very brave. She took a shaky breath. “It’s okay. Not your fault. I had expectations and I shouldn’t. That’s on me, not you.”
Frustration began to take a back seat to fear. He was losing her. His skin prickled, and a low-grade panic set in. “It is not your fault. It is mine.” He released her face and dragged her onto his lap, needing the closeness they’d had but somehow lost.
“I honestly did not think the past mattered, but if you want me to tell you about it, I will.”
He ran his hand over her hair, so short for a woman, but it suited her. It was sassy and no nonsense.
Her smile was wobbly, but it was there. “You will?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes. If it matters that much to you. And obviously it does.” He wondered why. Why did she need to know what the Knights had done to him in the past?
A sly voice whispered in the back of his head that maybe she needed to know so they wouldn’t repeat it, so they could try something new. He shoved the voice away, refusing to listen. Abigail would never betray him, and she certainly wasn’t working for the Knights and Anton Bruno.
Or is she?
What better way to get close to him than to have his path cross with a fragile, but beautiful and courageous woman. They wouldn’t have been searching for him specifically, but any drakon. The bracelet had been the lure. Or maybe the woman was the lure, and the magic trinket nothing more than a trap to keep him by her side.
He shook his head, refusing to believe such a thing. He was stronger than that. And the tattoos protected him against such magic tricks. And now she knew that. Would she share that information with Bruno?
“Vasili, what’s wrong?” She couldn’t fake the concern in her voice. Not Abigail. She was open and honest.
But he had only her word that events had transpired as she’d said they had.
Why was he feeling so unsure all of a sudden? He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
“Nothing is wrong. I just don’t like speaking of the past.”
She nodded. “I get that. And I’m sorry if I’m asking too much too soon.”
That quickly his suspicion faded, replaced once again with lust and caring. He released a huge sigh that ruffled her hair and made her laugh.
“Why do you keep your hair short?” he asked her, curious to know everything about her.
She touched the short strands and shrugged. “It was longer, but after, you know.” She sighed and let her hands drop back down by her sides. “I needed a change.”
He put his hands on her hips and pulled close enough for her to feel his arousal. He understood that after the kidnapping, she’d wanted a change.
“Will you tell me about it?” He realized he was being totally unfair, not willing to talk about his past, but wanting Abigail to share hers.
He was a drakon, one who craved knowledge. He should understand her need to know more about him. But thousands of years of habit died hard. And it was second nature to him to keep every detail about himself private. That would have to change if he hoped to keep her with him. If he couldn’t change, he would lose her.
And he would not allow that to happen.
Even though it went totally against everything he’d lived by for all these years, he offered her a trade. “You tell me, and I’ll tell you about my past. Deal?”
She shook her head, and his hopes sank. “No.” She drove the knife of her refusal home. “You don’t need to trade. I’ll tell you about the kidnapping, but you don’t need to share with me. I only want you to if you do it freely, not to get something from me.”
She shamed him.
He was a brave, fearless drakon, but he was being shown the true meaning of courage by this woman. She might not be anywhere near as physically strong as he was, but she was a giant when it came to emotional strength.
“Thank you.” It was a gift. Yet another one she’d given him.
“What do you want to know?” She glanced down and picked at her sweater. This was not an easy subject for her.
“Whatever you want to share.” He wanted to know every minute detail so he could go over it again and again and make certain all those associated with the event were indeed dead, but she didn’t need to know that.
…
She took a breath and plunged into the story, relaying the details of how she’d been taken and used as leverage by the Knights. How they’d bartered her in order to get something they wanted from her sister. It was difficult to stay detached, and fear crept into her voice.
Vasili growled, and his eyes glowed before he shook himself and they settled back into their normal color. “They hurt you?”
She nodded and rubbed her two fingers. Even after all this time, they still throbbed sometimes. A phantom pain. A memory that would never leave her. “Yes. They wanted to make sure Constance understood they meant business.”
Vasili swore under his breath. “That about covers it,” she agreed.
“What was his name?”
“The member of the Knights responsible for all of it?”
He gave a jerky nod.
“Jeremiah Dent, but he’s dead.”
Vasili’s jaw tightened. His anger was palpable. She wished she knew what he was thinking. “Well?”
He caught her chin in his hand. “You wish me to say I am angry at the men who took you. That I wish they were alive so I could kill them myself. It is not logical, but that is how I feel.”
He brushed a light kiss over her lips. “I wish you’d never been drawn into this world, into this deadly war, but I’m glad you were. Otherwise, you would have been unprepared for what happened here.”
He ran his fingers over her throat. Abigail moaned and clutched at his shoulders. “It pains me that you were injured, but it also brought you here. To me. And, my sweet Abigail”—he ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip—“for that, I can never be sorry.”
He was right. As much as she wished she could go back to her days of innocence before she’d learned about drakons and Knights, she wouldn’t trade whatever was happening between them for anything. It was too special, too precious.
She knew he probably had a million questions he wasn’t asking. She knew she had just as many she wanted to put to him. Instead of asking them, she slid her fingers into his hair and pulled him close. He came willingly.
Then she kissed him, and this time, she was the aggressor, taking what she wanted. And what she wanted was his heat, his passion. And he gave it, generously and completely.
Their tongues tangled, and a familiar heat seeped through her entire body. Every time she touched him, she wante
d him. And when he kissed her, she forgot about the problems facing them.
It would be so easy to retreat. His erection pressed against her stomach, and she rubbed herself against it. He groaned and managed to pull himself away from her.
“You’re not up to making love again, and we still need to talk.”
He was right. Time was running out. But she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that things were going to change, and not for the better. She was worried and wanted to hold on to the feelings of connectedness, of caring that she and Vasili shared.
“What do you want to know?” she asked. She might as well tell him everything. He was as involved in this as she was. Maybe more so. He was the true target. Anton Bruno would use her to capture Vasili, but in the end, it was the drakon that he wanted.
She, like last time, was expendable.
Chapter Twelve
Vasili wanted to keep kissing Abigail, but the clock was ticking away, and the station in Omsk was getting closer. It took effort to push back his anger. His dragon was furious that he hadn’t been able to protect her from what had happened. The fact he hadn’t even known she’d existed was irrelevant. There was no logic when it came to dealing with that side of him. Primal and fiercely protective, his dragon roared at the thought of anyone harming Abigail.
“Why did you come to Europe?” He was curious, wanted to know everything there was to know about her. After all she’d been through, it would have made more sense for her to want to stay home, close to her family.
She shrugged and tried to turn away, to look toward the window, but he tugged her back around.
“I couldn’t stay. I didn’t feel safe at home anymore.”
There was an underlying thread of hurt in her voice that made his heart ache. Home was important. Home was everything. It wasn’t just a place, but a feeling, a sense of belonging, of safety and community. She’d had that taken from her by an act of violence. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” She blinked several times. Her eyes were luminous, but she shed no tears. She rubbed her finger over a small stain on her jeans, as if trying to erase it. “It was the house we grew up in after our parents died. Our grandpa raised us, gave us a home.”
He watched her intently, giving her all of his attention. He wanted to make her pain go away but didn’t know how. He kept silent, hoping she’d keep talking.
“He taught us everything about buying and selling. We spent our childhood going to estate sales, yard sales, thrift stores, and antique shops.” Her gentle smile soothed some of his anger. She’d had so much, and it had all been ripped away from her.
Every little detail about her past was catalogued and tucked away like a precious gem in his memory so he could pull it out whenever he wanted. “What else did he teach you?” He was sorry he would never be able to meet the man.
Not everyone was willing to take in orphaned children, even if they were related. He knew that from experience. He’d had family, but after his mother died, they’d all turned him away. That would have been a death sentence to a human. Even for him, it had been a struggle to survive at first.
Abigail continued her story, pulling him away from the morose thoughts of the past. “Grandpa taught us to follow our own passions and dreams, no matter if they weren’t exactly considered normal. He told us the only person we had to live up to was the one we looked at in the mirror every morning.”
Vasili was glad she’d had such a wise man to guide her through her youth. “You have a camera with you.” He’d noticed it in the bag she guarded so closely. “You like to take pictures? Photographs?”
She nodded but seemed lost in another memory. “Yeah, my sister gave me a camera when I was a kid. Mostly, I think, to keep me busy. Turns out I not only liked it, I had an eye for it. I sell some of my finer work through a small gallery back home. I sell a lot of stock photos, too. I did sell prints online, but I shut that down before I left.”
He stroked his fingers through her hair, loving the silky feel. “This is what you love?” She had a talent for finding the best gemstones, yet she took pictures. Abigail was a puzzle, so strong in some ways, yet fragile in others.
“I do enjoy it, but I love vintage fabrics, finding and repurposing them.” She bit her lower lip, and his cock jerked. He’d been aroused most of the time he’d been around her. His lust for her knew no bounds. He wanted her lips on every part of his body. His dick flexed in agreement.
But now was not the time or the place.
When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of money, but sewing relaxes me.”
“You enjoy it. That is all that matters.”
“That’s what Constance says.”
The way she spoke about her sister told Vasili just how much her sister’s opinion meant to her. He hoped Constance would like him, because he wasn’t planning on leaving Abigail anytime soon. Not ever.
“What about you?” she asked.
As much as it pained him to share, he knew he had to try. Sharing didn’t come easy. Part of it was genetic—dragons were secretive creatures, and that was half of his DNA. It also came from being warned to watch everything he said and did while growing up. His mother had meant well, had done it to protect him, but it had only reinforced his inborn mistrust of others. “I was born about four thousand years ago near the Ural Mountains.”
“So it really is home for you.” She seemed surprised.
“Yes. I was raised in a nomadic tribe. The people lived off the land. It was a hard life.” One that had drained the life from his mother at an early age, especially since she’d been raising a child on her own without the help of a man. His sire had been little help.
“Life must have been difficult.” He could hear the interest, as well as the sympathy in her voice. “Especially for your mother. This is such a harsh land.”
He gave a jerky nod. He could still picture his mother. She had thick brown hair that had fallen to her waist. Her eyes had been as dark as the soil they sometimes tilled in the summer months. She’d been a healer, one of the only reasons she hadn’t been ostracized by her family and tribe. They’d needed her. Still, she’d been isolated even as she’d lived among them. They both had.
“It wasn’t easy for her.”
She pressed her hands against his chest. “And what was it like for you?”
“Difficult.” He’d borne the brunt of taunts and physical abuse whenever she wasn’t around to protect him. He’d been small for his age. Weak. Until he’d hit puberty. Then everything had changed.
“Your father?”
He sneered. “My sire abandoned us. I was too small. A disappointment.” He could still hear the echo of those words even after all these years.
“I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him and held him close. His arms rose, seemingly of their own volition, and closed around her. He hugged her tightly, drinking in her warmth and caring.
“It is well in the past,” he assured her.
She leaned back and nodded. “Doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt. And it’s his loss.” For someone so young, she understood so much. “What about the Knights?”
His lip curled in disdain. He’d known this was coming, but that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about them.
“Men have always coveted my treasures, but when they finally realized what my blood could do, then they wanted to own me.” It hadn’t come as a shock to him. By then, he’d understood the innate greed that seemed to drive a certain kind of person.
She shivered. “That’s horrible.”
“That is human nature,” he corrected. “Man always wants what he perceives will bring him more power. He thinks little past tomorrow. Look at the state of the world. They do not understand that when all the water has been tainted and there is no fresh air left to breathe, all their money and power will not bring it back. They do not understand that their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will curse their names. They do not seem to grasp that man
cannot eat gold once the fields are fallow.”
He shook his head. “I have seen the rise and fall of great civilizations. They all believed they would last forever, but they still fell. It is no different today. They will all be gone someday, but the drakons will still be here.” He could live in conditions that would kill a human.
He supposed that was a plus. If mankind eventually destroyed itself or at least sent itself back to the preindustrial times, drakons would be able to live freely once again, no longer having to hide.
Still, he hated to think it would come to that. The world was such a miraculous place, filled with natural beauty, art, music, and innovation. If only people would realize it before it was too late.
“You’re right. I worry about the state of things.” She gave a wry laugh. “I worry about a lot of things these days. Hence, the panic attacks.”
“You’ve been through more than most.” Most people lived their lives never realizing what was happening around them in the shadows.
Since they’d be pulling into the station within minutes, he got back to the topic at hand. “There have always been men who coveted drakons and what we have. They know we have treasures, collected over the long years of our lives. We have knowledge, long lost to mankind. But it is our blood and its ability to heal, to extend life that men have always craved. They need us alive to have a continuous and steady supply that is potent and reliable, and they’ve been trying to capture us since they first discovered what our blood can do. The Knights are simply the ones who have been the most organized and persistent.”
“But you’ve stayed away from them, off their radar.”
“For many, many years. Until now.” And as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t regret it. It had brought Abigail into his life. He was ready to share his home with someone, ready to open his heart to the right woman. He’d been alone for so very long.
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