“Look at me, Little Amazon.” He waited for her to do as he had asked and when she didn’t, he dropped the torch behind him and captured her cheek. She instantly stilled and he cursed when she began to tremble, her fear an acrid note in her soft scent. He slowly skimmed his fingers down to her jaw and tilted her head up. She closed her eyes and he huffed. “Look at me, Anais.”
Using her name seemed to be the key to making her listen because she opened her eyes. Their rich sapphire depths drew him in, leaving him aware of only her.
“I am no beast or barbarian,” he murmured and wished she could believe him. “I have no intention of using you in that manner. I have sworn not to hurt you… have I not?”
She nodded.
“Then why persist with this nonsense?”
She tried to look away but he held her firm. “Because… just because. I don’t have to give you a reason.”
Because she feared the reason she had to give.
She didn’t want to voice it and tell him that he wasn’t the only one who felt desire, who was drawn to her and powerless against the ferocity of his need of such a delicate little female. She wanted him too, and for her it was infinitely more difficult to comprehend and cope with. She viewed herself as a captive and he her abductor. That alone was reason enough for her to fight her feelings.
But she had other reasons too, just as he did.
A mortal was no match for an immortal.
He brushed his fingers across her soft cheek and reluctantly released her, stepping back to give her room to gather herself. He picked up the torch and grabbed the handle of the cauldron.
“Come. I need water.” He waited for her to finish smoothing her clothes before moving.
She followed him, a silent shadow in the low light.
He searched for something to say to dispel the tension between them but nothing came to him. It had been a long time since he’d had female company, had desired one as he desired her, and he wasn’t sure how to go about things. He didn’t know how to charm females of her world, and wasn’t sure he should be charming her at all. He was trying to keep his distance, but the moment he let his guard down, he found himself close to her, seeking a way of touching her or winning a smile from her.
He banked left when they reached the end of the tunnel and led her along another one. The path sloped downwards and the air grew moist as he approached the area deep in the heart of the mountain where he had created a bathing pool and one for his store of water.
Anais busied herself with touring the large cave, her fingers drifting over the stalagmites that rose from the ground, forming jagged black spikes.
“Why live in the front of the cave when you have all these rooms?” She glanced across at him.
He dipped the small wooden pail he had made into the well near the entrance and pulled it out, setting it down on the rocky side. “The fire.”
She frowned. “What about it?”
He lifted the torch and wafted it around, making it smoke. That smoke rose up to the top of the cavern and stayed there.
Her eyes lit up with understanding. “I get it. Smoke accumulates back here.”
“It is safer at the mouth of the cave too. I can sense intruders and it is a bigger space. I can shift if I need to.” He held the pail out to her and she crossed the room to him and took it.
Perhaps she was finally settling in and becoming more comfortable with him. He wasn’t going to hold his breath though. Whenever he thought she was becoming accustomed to being around him, she revolted and turned on him again.
“What’s it like to shift?” she said to the pail.
Loke shrugged. “It is difficult to explain. It does not hurt, and it is over so quickly for me that I barely notice it. It is as natural to me as breathing or walking.”
She frowned at the water, her nose wrinkling with it. “I’ve met wolf and cat shifters. It always looks like it hurts when they shift.”
“I suspect that is because you are hunting those creatures.” He looked across at her and tried to imagine her fighting people from those species. Perhaps she was strong enough to battle cats and wolves, maybe even vampires with the right weaponry, but she was too weak to fight dragons or bears, and he definitely couldn’t imagine her surviving a fight against an elf or a demon. “They are forced to shift quickly. I have heard that it causes them great pain… but then I suppose the death you wish to deal will hurt them worse… giving them to others to butcher in the name of science.”
She raised her eyes to his, narrowing them at the same time. He had offended her again, but this time he didn’t care. Fighting with honour in a battle was one thing. Both parties knew what to expect—death if they failed. Hunting prey for handing them over to others to study was another. The losing side was expecting death, not an agonising torture at the hands of scientists.
He curled his lip again.
She huffed. “I don’t do that… so get it out of your damned head. Archangel doesn’t slice and dice. It studies, but using modern technology. Scans… machines… bloodwork. That sort of thing.”
It didn’t make him change his opinion of this Archangel she was always quick to defend.
“You do not deny that you hand over some of your prey to them though.” He began walking again, heading back towards the fire.
She didn’t respond.
He wasn’t surprised.
She worked for people who made a business of hunting and studying creatures, and he suspected that what she had been told about those studies differed greatly from what really happened.
He led her back to the cave mouth and she placed the pail on the ground near the fire and sat on the furs without him asking her to make herself comfortable.
Loke wasn’t going to read into that either.
He kneeled on the black ground by the fire in the middle of the cave and focused on making their meal. She was silent the whole time, studying him. He stopped several times, on the verge of asking her what she was thinking, before continuing with his work.
She spoke once, during her meal when she mentioned that the meat tasted like beef. He still wasn’t sure what kind of animal beef was. He had taken the empty bowl from her and served himself some stew, and by the time he had gathered the courage to ask and risk her mocking him, she had fallen asleep.
Loke set the bowl down, rose to his feet and crossed the short stretch of ground between them. He kneeled beside her and canted his head as he studied her. She lay on her left side, her back to the wall of the cave, the firelight playing over her soft features and making her fair hair shimmer like gold.
What was it about this little female that drew him to her? She had spoken about strength of heart to him, her belief shining in her words for him to hear. Was emotional strength really a match for physical strength? Did it really make a mortal capable of mating with a strong immortal?
He didn’t believe that.
He brushed a rogue strand of golden hair from her face and settled the tips of his middle and index fingers against her temple. His eyes slipped shut and he breathed deeply and evenly as he focused on her.
Dragons had limited magic born of their connection to the earth and nature. Every generation born in Hell had weaker powers than the last. He was born of the generation before the final one to bear magic.
His magic was weak and he could only use it sparingly. It would drain him and leave him vulnerable for the next few hours, but he had no choice. He couldn’t risk her waking and attempting to escape.
He funnelled a little magic into her, enough to bind her sleep to his.
If she woke, he would too.
When he woke, she would.
It was safer this way.
He hadn’t lied to her. Beyond the cave were other dragons, ones who would live up to her fears.
They wouldn’t treat her with respect as he did. They wouldn’t seek to take care of her. They wouldn’t want to protect her for no other reason than her safety meant something to them. They wou
ld only protect her because she would be theirs and dragons defended what they owned.
She would be nothing but a possession to them.
Loke stroked his fingers down her cheek.
What was she to him?
He wasn’t sure, but the longer he was around her, the more he was coming to fear he knew the reason why the thought of a prince of elves and a demon king finding their mate in a mortal female concerned him.
He had a feeling that their meeting on the battlefield had been more than chance.
It had been fate.
CHAPTER 4
Steaming water lapped at her bare breasts, rippling with each move Anais made. She washed on instinct, her focus elsewhere, around one hundred metres behind her in the main area of the cave.
With Loke.
Her fingers skimmed up and down her arms and she shivered from the light touch, a fuzzy memory of masculine fingers stroking her cheek with the same gentleness bubbling to the surface of her mind only to sink within the mire of her thoughts.
He confused her at every turn, muddled her feelings and stirred her thoughts, until she wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had snatched her from the battlefield, but not to enslave her or abuse her. He had done it to protect her. She firmly believed that. She had offended him enough times in the few hours they had been together to gather enough evidence to support his case. He wanted to protect her from whatever danger he had witnessed in a vision.
She had never met a species capable of seeing the future before.
It fascinated her.
He fascinated her.
When he had offered to allow her to bathe, she had expected him to be present while she used his thermal pools. She had expected him to stand sentinel and ensure she didn’t attempt to escape.
He had escorted her to the cavern, using a torch to light the way. When they had arrived, he had placed the torch into a holder near the pool, and had offered her a bar of what she imagined to be homemade soap, a small scrap of cloth, and a larger piece that looked like a rustic sort of towel. Watching him instruct her on his method of cleaning had been amusing, drawing a smile from her.
When he had caught it, he had muttered something in his strange tongue, his words holding a lyrical and soft quality, and had left her alone.
Anais had been stuck thinking about him ever since.
She had sat on the rock near the pool and washed herself using the small towel, soap and a pail of water. It all felt terribly Japanese to her. The thermal vents that heated the pool kept the room warm and moist, but the water she had used to wash the suds off onto the black ground had been cold. She had literally jumped into the pool.
The moment she had sunk beneath the water, letting it lap around her shoulders, her thoughts had turned to Loke, to wondering what he was doing while she bathed.
She leaned her back against one set of the stalagmites that enclosed the pool, cupped her hand and drew the water up over her arm and shoulder again, sighing as the heat of it soothed her weary bones but failed to settle her thoughts.
It felt as if everything Loke did waged war on her, confusing her feelings and weakening her defences.
He had healed her wound for her, not once looking at her body, had taken care of her, had fed her, and had allowed her to take his bed.
She hadn’t meant to sleep. She had meant to pretend to nod off, wait for him to settle into a deep sleep, and then investigate the cave and check out the mouth of it. She knew that Loke would have been angry with her if he had caught her, but she needed to get a good look at the outside world. She would have to try again later. She felt more relaxed now. Stress and too much good food had to have been the reason she had fallen asleep. Tonight she would make sure she didn’t eat as much, and would fight the lure of sleep so she could continue with her plan.
She stared ahead of her, watching the golden light from the torch set into the wall behind her as it danced across the black rocks, casting shifting shadows from the stalagmites across the wall on the opposite side of the cavern.
Anais ran her hand down her right arm and frowned as her fingers brushed the wound that darted across it. She turned her arm towards her and peered at it. There was little more than a faint scar. Magic. How had Loke healed it? She knew vampires had healing saliva and believed elves did too. Did dragons also have it, or was there magic in his breath?
A flash of him as a majestic blue dragon ran across her eyes and she let the memory wash over her, invading her heart and her mind. He had been beautiful. She hadn’t been afraid of him, not until he had grabbed her. She had been too entranced to fear him, but then she had been in his front paw and instinct had driven her to fight him.
Even though he had been holding her carefully.
He could have easily crushed her.
But he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
Anais pushed him out of her mind and focused on bathing and planning. She needed to survey her surroundings, find out if there was anything she could use as a weapon in case she needed to fight, and pull her plan together so she could put it into action.
A tiny fragment of her heart hurt at the thought of breaking her vow to Loke. He had kept his, and she was planning to break hers. She wasn’t sure what that made her, but she couldn’t afford to think about it or let her feelings rule her. She needed to get away and get back to her team somehow.
Even when that small part of her still wanted to stay here, trusting that Loke would keep his other vow and would return her. It would be easier than trying to make her way back to the Third Realm when she didn’t know the topography of Hell or where she was in it.
She would need to draw Loke into telling her about the area.
She only hoped he wouldn’t grow suspicious of her.
Anais stood and let the water run off her. The air felt chilly on her damp skin, instantly sucking the heat from it. She stepped out of the pool, quickly dried off and dressed in her black combats and t-shirt. She would kill for a change of clothes, but she hadn’t spotted anything resembling a wardrobe in Loke’s cave. She had a suspicion he owned a pair of blue leather trousers and that was all.
Those trousers had disappeared when he had shifted.
Like magic.
She found herself stuck on that word. Archangel knew nothing about dragons except for their existence. It was entirely possible that they could use magic. The elves used something akin to it. They could teleport things and had telekinesis. Witches used magic. It wouldn’t surprise her if Loke could too.
Anais shoved her feet into her boots, picked up the wooden torch, and started back towards the cave mouth, following the black rock tunnel. It forked a short distance from the main cave and she glanced down the tunnel to her left, her steps slowing.
Loke had treasure.
Was it down that tunnel?
He had also warned her that he sometimes had unexpected visitors. The thought of running into something when she wasn’t armed sent a cold shiver tumbling down her spine and she turned away from the tunnel, unwilling to live up to the old adage of curiosity killing the cat.
Her steps slowed for a different reason as she entered the main area of the cave.
Loke stood with his gaze on the fire, skilfully running the edge of his knife over his cheek, scraping away dark blue stubble and leaving clean smooth skin behind. She watched him in silence, admiring his skill with the knife as he tipped his chin up and shaved his neck, never once cutting himself. Not even the tiniest of nicks.
She admired him for a different reason as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, drawing her gaze there. Masculine. Everything about this man screamed masculine. He was powerful. Honed. Intelligent. Beautiful.
She shoved against those dangerous thoughts about him and scuffed her boot on the gritty black ground so he noticed her and stopped tempting her with something she shouldn’t want.
She couldn’t pretend that she was experiencing simple want born of not having been with a man for over a year. It was desire.
Full-blown, no-holes-barred, deep and dangerous desire.
The sort of desire she had never experienced before.
He flicked her a glance, his dazzling jewel-blue eyes bright in the light from the fire, and then finished shaving. When he was done, he lowered the knife, twirled it in his palm and sheathed it in one fluid move.
She stared at it. “That’s a dangerous method of shaving.”
He shrugged perfect muscular bare shoulders. “There is no other method of grooming.”
She recalled him being astounded when she had spoken of electronic goods, but she hadn’t expected his limit of technology to be a knife. She hadn’t thought about the basic necessities of life at all. No shaver. Not even a razor.
Heavens, she could kill for a razor. If her plan failed or wasn’t viable and she had to stay in the cave, she was going to need at least a razor, some perfume or deodorant, toothpaste and a toothbrush. That was the bare minimum. A change of clothes was up there, but she could wash what she had.
She was damned if she was going to shave with a knife.
She eyed Loke. He probably wouldn’t let her near it anyway. It was clear that he used that one knife for everything. Shaving. Cutting his incredible blue hair. Cooking. Everything revolved around that knife.
It was obviously quite precious to him.
If she stole it, would he let her go in exchange for having it returned?
“It’s a nice knife.” She nodded towards it and his left hand came down, settling on the spiralling metal grip.
He drew it from the sheath and stared at it for long seconds, his handsome face turning pensive and his blue eyes filling with emotions she couldn’t decipher, ones he decoded for her when he spoke, his deep voice echoing around the cave.
“It was my father’s.”
“I can see it means a lot to you.” She hadn’t expected it to mean so much though or that just mentioning the knife would affect him so dramatically. He looked lost as he stared at it, and a little broken, no longer the strong and determined male he had been just a moment ago. “Have you lost your father?”
Taken by a Dragon Page 5