by Paula Quinn
She was going to have to buy more onions.
Sweeping her gaze over the length of his body, she knew there was no possible way she could get him up to bed, so with a whisper goodnight, she left him and climbed the stairs to her room.
*
Marcus dreamed in magnificent colors of cerulean blues, emerald greens, magenta reds, sallow golds, and rich purples. In his dream, he flew, his majestic head tossing from side-to-side searching the earth below. He saw men scurrying to and fro and he opened his wide mouth to blast them with his fire. But something made him pause. He remembered human eyes as dark as the night sky. He sniffed the air, but the foul smell of onions filled his lungs. He cried out, anguished by what he could not find, and the sudden, stabbing pain in his head.
Chapter Sixteen
The sun puddled onto Sam’s face from the two vaulted windows opposite her bed. Half awake, she shivered and pulled the blankets up to her chin and made a groggy mental note to replace the single-paned glass with double as soon as she received her royalty check. She was just beginning to settle back into a deeper sleep when she felt a tremendous thump right beside her. She bolted upright, fearing her ceiling had just caved in on top of her mattress.
“Marcus, what are you doing?” she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and gaped at him sprawled face down in the pillows next to her.
“Sam, not so loud, I beg you,” he pleaded on a muffled groan and lifted his hands to clutch his head.
“Oh,” she said as understanding washed over her. “You have a hangover.”
“I’m dying, Samantha.”
“You’re not dying.” She looked him over. Indeed, he was as healthy as any man had a right to be. She should feel uncomfortable about him being in her bed wearing nothing but his too-snug-for-the-good-of-her-senses white boxer briefs, but she liked the feel of waking up next to his big body.
“Had you ever drank wine before last night, Marcus?”
He shook his head, groaned again, and then ripped the pillow from under him and threw it over his head.
“Come on,” she said, getting out of bed. “You need some coffee.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Or is it a bloody Mary? I can’t remember what the cure is for a hangover.”
He moved the pillow aside and groaned. “That was a tasteless joke, Sam.”
“It’s a tomato concoction, silly.”
His face paled to a pasty white and Sam gasped, leaping away from him. “Please don’t throw up in my bed.”
Marcus clenched his teeth at her for moving so fast. He sat up slowly, moaning as he went. “Fear not, I thought some fresh air would help so I went flying. I think I threw up on your Eric or near him. My aim was poor.”
Sam’s mouth fell open and then she clamped her hand over it to keep from laughing.
Poor Eric.
She led Marcus down the stairs, making sure she didn’t speak too loudly or bang into anything like she usually did in the morning. On the way down, he took hold of her hand, cranking up her heartbeat. Marcus was huge and she felt ridiculous leading him around like a child. His hand was warm and rough and so very big compared to hers, and oh God help her, she was really starting to care for him. It scared the living daylights out of her.
In the kitchen, she sat him down gently in a chair and started a fresh pot of coffee.
The phone rang and he jumped to his feet and looked about to pass out.
“Hell, I hate those damn things,” he said. It rang again and he grasped his forehead.
“Phones?” Sam cast him an odd look and ran to answer it before it rang again. “It’s Ellie.” She told him quietly. She figured the loss of color in his face was due to his hangover.
“Ellie?” he breathed, scowling as if someone had just told him his favorite dog was rabid.
“Marcus,” Sam told the receiver. “Yes, he came back yesterday.” Sam was smiling when she held the receiver out to him. “She wants to speak to you.”
Cautiously, Marcus lifted his hand to accept the offering. He stared at the receiver, his scowl deepening. “Amanda had one of these cursed things. It screeched at the most ill-timed moments.”
Sam’s expression went dark as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Amanda?”
“Padgora’s wife,” he clarified, turning the receiver around in his hand.
“I see,” Sam seethed. “Put it to your ear and say hello, Marcus.”
He did as she instructed with a little help tilting it at the right angle from Sam.
“Hello?”
Ellie must have spoken, because he yanked the receiver away from his ear again and stared at it as if it had just sprouted wings and a tail. Sam would have laughed if she didn’t want to smash the damn thing over his head. Amanda’s phone rang at the most ill-timed moments, did it?
Oblivious to her ire, Marcus put the receiver back to his ear and took a cautious step toward the wall. “Where are you, Ellie?” he asked, poking the phone with his finger. He nodded at something she said on the other end, and then listened, all the while examining the phone and the springy cord that attached it to the receiver. “Yes, Ellie, I’m glad I came back, too.” He finally smiled—until Sam tossed him a thought.
So, you had sex with Padgora’s wife?
Marcus dropped the phone and clutched his head with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut in pain.
“Marcus, what is it?” Sam paled, reaching for his arm.
“Telepathy…don’t use it.”
Relieved that he wasn’t suffering some dragon brain aneurysm, Sam pulled him back gently to his chair, then returned to scoop the receiver off the floor. After she explained to Ellie that Marcus had one hell of a hangover, she nodded and hung up. “She’s coming over. She knows what to do.”
“Good,” he growled at her. “Then mayhap you’ll cease trying to kill me.”
Sam glared at him and slammed a cup on the counter. “You know what? Fix your own damn coffee. Or better yet, why don’t you call Amanda and have her come over and do it?” She stomped out of the kitchen spewing oaths at him that he could hear until she kicked her bedroom door shut upstairs.
*
Alone, Marcus swore a few choice oaths of his own. He hadn’t meant to snap at Sam, but he felt like hell. What in blazes was a hangover? Why was he being plagued with it? And what in damnation did Amanda have to do with any of it?
He leaned forward in his chair and dropped his pounding head into his hands. Damn Sam for screaming in his head. And damn it now if someone wasn’t pounding on the front door.
He left his chair, staggering backward from the colorful stars that swam before his eyes. It was probably Ellie come to help him. That thought cheered him up some. He liked Ellie. She had a kind voice and a patient demeanor. When he yanked open the door, his already pained expression turned murderous. The morning just could not get any worse.
“It’s you!” Eric Pembroke literally shrieked when he saw the hulking mountain on the other side of the door. His stunned, wide eyes followed the bare path of Marcus’ chest down to his full briefs.
Marcus gritted his teeth and slammed the door shut in Eric’s face before the worm could utter another word. Inside the castle, he rubbed his head and started for the kitchen to wait for Ellie.
The front door burst open, so he halted his steps and brought his shoulders up around his ears. “Where is she? Where’s Sam?” Eric charged inside like a most foul curse on the wind.
Damnation, Marcus fumed. He’d forgotten to bolt the bloody door. He turned on his heel, muttering curses in his ancient tongue. Within seconds, his long strides brought him to Eric. He grabbed the smaller man’s jacket collar in his fist and lifted him almost off the ground. “I have a hangover,” he growled between tightly clenched teeth. “If you make another sound, I will throw you into the fire where you belong.”
“I’m calling the authorities!” Eric bellowed, scraping the toes of his boots against the floor. “What have you done to Sam?”
“Damn it!” Ma
rcus dragged Eric across the foyer into the great hall as if he were a child’s doll. When Eric saw the hearth and the low flames within, he began to panic and raked at Marcus’ fingers.
“Marcus, stop it!” Sam shouted at him from the top of the stairs then, raced down, dressed now in her jeans and a sweater.
Did everyone in the damned castle have to scream? Marcus’ fingers tightened around Eric’s collar and he yanked him forward, positively glowering at Sam, who was charging him.
She threw herself in front of the hearth, holding her arms out at her sides to stop Eric from being thrown into the fire.
“Move aside, Sam.”
“I will not!” she shouted, sounding ready to explode with fury. “You let him go, Marcus. Right now!”
For a moment, their eyes locked in a force that normally would have made Sam tremble and run, but she was not about to let him hurt Eric because he had a hangover.
“You would save this worm?”
“Yes, I would.” She glared up at him, her lower lip pursed in challenge.
“Very well, Sam,” he said, the anger in his gaze fading to something more like resignation. “Keep him then.” He dropped his fist from Eric’s jacket and walked off into the kitchen.
“Sam!” Eric picked himself off the floor where he’d landed and then took the time to smooth his collar. “He’s a madman. He attacked me for no reason!”
Sam shook her head and looked toward the kitchen. Was Marcus dangerous to others? Would he really have hurt Eric? “I’m sorry. He doesn’t seem to like you, but I don’t think he—”
“Who the hell is he anyway?” Eric demanded. “And why is he here at eight o’clock in the morning wearing nothing but skivvies? Are you having sex with him, Samantha?”
Marcus returned carrying a cup of steaming black coffee. He spotted a chair across the room and headed for it. “She’s a virgin, you maggot.” He gave Eric a quick, rough shove when he passed him and both Sam and Eric almost tumbled into the hearth. “Can’t you smell it?”
“Bastard,” Sam swore at him while he threw himself into the chair. He winced and she smiled.
Bastard! She flung at him with all her might and her smile widened into a joyous grin when he put the cup on the table and covered his pounding head.
Eric stared at Marcus, then at Sam in stunned disbelief. “You’re just going to let him sit there? Call the authorities, Sam!”
“Eric, he’s a friend of mine.”
“Oh, so now he’s a friend. You told me you hired him to repair your wall.”
“I did.” She glared at Eric now as well.
“I think,” Eric said, unmoved by her increasingly furious gaze. “You and this…this…”
“Drakkon,” Marcus finished for him.
“What?” Eric turned on him. “Aha, so you’re a foreigner, that explains it.”
For a brief, heady moment, Marcus considered flinging the lackwit bodily over Sam’s pretty head into the waiting flames.
“Eric,” Sam rubbed her forehead to stop the sudden pounding both of them were causing. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I came over to check on you since you said you were ill yesterday.”
“She’s fine now,” Marcus informed him, his smile tinged with malice. “So, you can leave.”
Sam tugged on Eric’s sleeve before the fool said something he would regret. Or was it already too late for that? “I haven’t eaten breakfast yet. Take me somewhere, will you? We can talk there.”
Eric finally turned back to her, a million questions narrowing his eyes with suspicion. He nodded finally, then scrunched up his nose. “What’s that smell?”
Sighing because even two showers couldn’t remove the smell of onions from her body, Sam brushed by him. “Let me get my coat.”
Marcus practically leaped over his chair. He reached the foyer first and snatched her coat off the hinge. Sam tried to grab it away from him, but his reflexes were sharp and fast. “Don’t leave this house with him, Sam,” he warned, his eyes smoldering with something deadly.
“Or what?” she asked just as forcefully. “You’ll leave again?”
“No, but I…”
“Give me my coat,” she demanded, unafraid of him.
He stared at her for another moment, giving her a chance to change her mind. When she didn’t, he tossed the coat at her. “Very well, then. Farewell.”
Sam watched him storm back to the great hall, passing Eric without comment.
Farewell? If you leave this time, don’t come back. Her heart broke a little.
Stop talking in my blasted head and go if you’re going!
For a moment, she didn’t move. Marcus had no idea why that made his heart rejoice. But he celebrated too quickly.
“Come on.” She pulled Eric toward the door.
Back in the great hall, Marcus shut his eyes when he heard the front door slam shut. Then he picked up his cup of coffee and dashed it into the fire with a blasphemous oath.
He was never going to get this right.
Chapter Seventeen
When Sam returned to the castle later that afternoon, Ellie was sitting in the solar before a toasty fire of stacked wood, a warm woolen blanket around her shoulders, and a book about dragons perched in her lap. She barely looked up from over her half-moon spectacles when Sam entered the room.
“I see Marcus chopped some more wood.” Sam took a seat in an oversized armchair beside Ellie and yanked off her boots. “I was sure he would have left,” she said, unable to help the relief she felt that he hadn’t.
“No, dear. He’s still here. He was in a foul mood though.”
“Humph,” Sam grumbled. When Ellie went right on reading, Sam bent to look at the cover depicting a dragon. “Oh, wonderful.”
Turning the book down on her lap, Ellie removed her glasses and finally gave Sam all her attention. “I see Marcus is not the only one who’s in a foul mood today. Care to tell me what happened?”
“You mean he didn’t tell you?”
Ellie shook her head. “He just said he had a terrible hangover from some drink you tried to poison him with last evening. And then he told me you went out with Eric, which I assumed was the real reason he was stomping about, cursing the walls.”
“I tried to poison him?” Sam blistered. “I cooked him a fine dinner last night, Ellie. How was I supposed to know he couldn’t hold his alcohol?”
Ellie held up her book. “According to this, alcohol is poisonous to Drakkons, dear. He could have died.”
Sam gulped a swallow. “You mean really poisonous?” When Ellie nodded her head, Sam jumped out of her chair. “Is he okay?” she asked the older woman frantically. “Where is he? Oh, Ellie, I didn’t know. If I did anything to hurt him I’d never forgive myself.”
“He’s fine, dear.” Ellie soothed her. “I made him a brew of some thyme, thistle, and cranberry juice, if you can believe that. It actually helped him. He’s sleeping now.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Sam took her seat once again. “How did you know what to make him?”
“He told me,” Ellie informed her. “When I advised him that wine was an alcoholic drink, he knew what he needed to be well.” Ellie smiled and her chubby cheeks wrinkled. “He had no idea what a hangover was. He just assumed it meant an ill feeling that causes your head to hang over.”
Sam covered her mouth with her hand, hiding the smile that made her lips twitch. “Oh, Ellie, I had no idea.”
Sighing, Ellie took her glasses off the tip of her nose. “Sam, dear, you must realize that Marcus has never experienced some of the things we take for granted. He has this ancient knowledge coursing through his blood about the earth and the elements, and yet he’s as innocent as a babe when it comes to things men his human age should know.”
Sam nodded, and then blushed all the way to her roots remembering the way he had almost brought her to climax without even removing his shorts. He wasn’t that innocent.
“Oh, that’s all basic ins
tinct, dear.” Ellie said, seeing Sam turn crimson and guessing why. “Any red-blooded male knows instinctively what to do with his…well…what God has endowed him with.”
Sam wanted the floor to open up so she could fall through it. “He didn’t…we didn’t…”
“Of course you didn’t, my dear.” Ellie quieted her with a soft voice and soothing, knowing smile. “Part of his ranting this morning had to do with you rubbing yourself down in bleeping, flipping onions so that you wouldn’t drive him mad, but you were driving him mad just the same.”
“Oh, for goodness sakes, Ellie!” Sam sighed, tired now of the whole business of blushing. “What else did he tell you?”
“That’s it,” her friend replied impassively. She slipped her glasses back on and returned to her book.
Sam sat there drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair. Finally, when she realized that Ellie wasn’t going to say another word. “Where did you get the book?”
“Marcus gave it to me.”
Sam sat up, showing more interest now in the book. “What does it say?”
Ellie leaned toward Sam conspiratorially and smiled as if she couldn’t wait another second to tell Sam all about it and had been waiting for the right moment. “Well, according to this, the Drakkon have survived for thousands of years. They are a solitary race sharing some of the same emotions we feel, save passion, jealousy, sorrow, things like that.”
Sam bit her lip and cursed herself. Was Marcus jealous of Eric and he didn’t even know it?
“Like any beast,” Ellie continued, “they mate mainly to procreate. But they do love their life-mate, only I don’t think Marcus has ever loved anyone before. They also experience anger. That emotion he knows well,” she added with a slight shake of her head and a quick glance in Sam’s direction. “They lived in cliffs and caves. Some, like Marcus, lived around seas and some dwelled in mountains or in forests. They have, or had, a second stomach that turned what they digested into acid and in turn the acid would change into in byproduct of hydrogen and something or other. The book says there were many different species of the Drakkon, and many had their own color. Marcus was an Aqua, Sam.” Ellie informed her.