by Donna Grant
The dragon’s head snapped back to the man, a low rumble coming from its chest. Grace told herself to go back inside the cave and find Arian, but she still couldn’t move.
Whether it was from fear or curiosity, she wasn’t sure.
But she remained to see what would happen. And as the man began to throw more bubbles at the dragon, she was glad she did.
The dragon was a large target. Even when the dragon knocked the man sideways with its wing, he got back on his feet. As the sun rose higher, Grace got a better look at the man. His short black hair was liberally laced with thick, silver strands.
Everything was odd about the entire scene, from the man to the dragon. It had to be a dream. There was no other explanation for such things.
The man blasted the dragon with several bubbles in a row, and to her shock, Grace watched the dragon disappear in a blink. And in its place was none other than Arian.
He pushed up on his hands and glared at the man. “You’re going to die here.”
“Not before I find what I’m looking for,” replied the man in an Irish accent.
Grace rubbed her eyes. When she opened them and Arian still stood there as naked as she had found him the day before, she wasn’t sure what to do.
Then it didn’t matter as he and the other man began to attack each other. The fight was vicious in both sight and sound. Arian hit the man hard while more bubbles barreled into Arian.
Then Arian fell to one knee with burns covering his body where the bubbles hit him. Grace covered her mouth with her hand. The shock of seeing him so wounded turned her stomach, but it also made her angry. Who was the man to attack Arian so?
The wounds looked extremely painful. By the way Arian grimaced, they were.
She silently urged him to get up and keep fighting. The fact he was the dragon was something she would face later. She instinctively knew that whoever Arian was fighting wasn’t a good person.
The stranger threw another bubble at Arian that caused him to growl in fury. Grace took a step back when she saw the wrath on Arian’s face.
He got to his feet and attacked the man again while Grace watched. They were locked together with more bubbles hitting Arian at very close range.
Grace couldn’t tell who was winning as the two of them fell together and rolled. For long moments she waited to hear or see something. When nothing happened, Grace walked out of the cave and looked down to find them.
She spotted the black and silver haired man lying face down, unmoving. Arian was on his side with his back to her. And he wasn’t moving either.
“Arian,” she whispered, worried for him.
Grace briefly thought of getting her laptop and running far away. There was something strange going on at this mountain, and it would be better if she wasn’t involved.
But she couldn’t leave Arian. He was hurt, and she didn’t like how much that upset her. With a sigh, she made her way down to him.
When she reached him, Grace knelt beside him and looked over his body. There were burns everywhere. She bit her lip and gently turned him onto his back. There was no ignoring the fact he was completely naked. His entire torso was littered with wounds. Yet he was still breathing.
She blew out a relieved breath and found herself shaking with a mixture of happiness and concern. Now, she had to get him up and back inside the cave. Since he was so much taller than her, not to mention he outweighed her with all those muscles, she wasn’t sure how she was going to accomplish that feat.
Grace glanced at the other guy and picked up a rock to bash him on the head. She got to her feet and cautiously walked to him.
She pushed him with her foot, but he didn’t move. Grace gave him a harder push, turning him onto his back. She dropped the rock as she gagged at seeing a gaping wound in his chest where his heart had been.
Whoever the man was, he wasn’t going to be bothering Arian anymore.
Grace hurried back to Arian. His eyelids cracked open as she leaned over him. Grace gave him a nod. “We’re going to get you back in the cave.”
“Scared,” he murmured brokenly.
At first Grace thought he was saying he was afraid. Then she realized he was speaking of her. There he was on the side of a mountain injured terribly, and he was worried about her.
Grace could only stare at him, wondering if men like him really existed. Most people would be concerned about themselves, but not Arian. His thought was of her.
Then it hit her. She had seen him as a dragon. Was she afraid? Yes, in many ways. But how could she be scared now as Arian lay wounded?
She licked her lips and met his gaze. “Yes. But my father didn’t raise me to leave someone who is hurt. So, I’m going to get you back into that mountain. Then I’m leaving.”
The last part had been more for herself than him. She really should leave, but how could she after all she just witnessed? Remaining meant her life was in danger, as was obvious by the battle she had seen.
Then there were Arian’s wounds. Someone would need to help him. It was the least she could do since he let her stay and write in his mountain.
Dragons.
Yep, the man she was looking down at was a dragon. Why wasn’t she more scared? Most people would’ve been running for their lives. But there was something about Arian that calmed her. She trusted him.
Arian gave a slight nod in response to her words.
Grace winced as she looked down at him. “This is going to hurt.”
At that, Arian rolled back to his side slowly and began to sit up. She was there to lend a hand and keep him steady. He was tall and muscular, and Grace wasn’t sure how she was going to get him on his feet, much less up the slope to the cave. But she was going to try.
Once he was on his feet, he only put a small fraction of his weight on her. Grace draped his arm over her shoulder and wrapped an arm around him.
The climb up to the cave was as strenuous as she imagined it would be. Both of them were soon covered in sweat. Grace tried to take more of his weight to help him.
It seemed to take an eternity to reach the entrance. Arian breathed a sigh when they stepped inside the cave.
“Water,” he said, motioning with his other hand to the body of water.
Grace walked him to the fire and helped him down. He stretched out on his right side with his eyes closed and didn’t utter another word.
She hurried to get a bottle of water from the basket and brought it to him. While she held it to his lips, Arian drank the entire bottle, never opening his eyes.
Grace put the cap on the bottle and sat on her haunches as Arian appeared to slip into unconsciousness. Her mind urged her to leave, but she hesitated. What if there were more of those black and silver haired men about?
She would rather take her chances here with Arian than encounter one of those men. Then she also wanted to see if Arian would speak of what had transpired.
Besides, if she saw something she wasn’t supposed to, running would do her no good. Arian and any others like him would find her soon enough. So Grace remained.
She got another bottle of water from the basket and one of the napkins. After she soaked the cloth napkin, she began to clean Arian’s wounds.
Her eyes drifted freely over his magnificent body, from his wide shoulders, contoured stomach muscles, and trim waist. Then lower to his narrow hips and his flaccid cock.
She bit her lip at seeing so much of him when he was unconscious, but with a body like his, it should be showed off.
“Oh my,” she whispered as she drew in a stuttering breath.
There wasn’t a part on Arian that wasn’t absolute perfection. And she wanted to touch every inch of him.
Chapter Six
Grace was wondering how to get Arian out of the mountain and to a hospital when she noticed his wounds didn’t look quite as bad as before.
As she watched, she saw his injuries begin to heal. The burns disappeared and his skin knitted back together without a trace of any damage.
“Doona be afraid,” Arian said.
Her gaze jerked to his face where his champagne eyes were open and watching her. “Yeah, a bit late for that.”
“I didna mean for you to see any of that. I thought you’d still be asleep.”
Grace shrugged and fiddled with the now useless napkin. “But I did witness it.”
“Aye. You did.” Arian pushed himself up into a sitting position.
She pointed to his now healed wounds. “What was that out there?”
He eyed her for several long, silent moments. Then he said, “Magic.”
“Magic,” she repeated. Well, she did see a dragon. Would it be too far of a stretch to accept magic as a weapon?
“You didna leave. Why?” Arian asked.
Grace looked at his chest again as she imagined him as a dragon. A huge dragon with the most beautiful turquoise scales that reminded her of the waters off the Bahamas.
The fear she had first felt was melting away. Now, it was desire—hot and insistent—that filled her. “I told you. I couldn’t leave you out there wounded. Although, if I’d known you could heal, then I would’ve.”
When she looked up at his face, Arian was grinning. As if her words amused him. He was supposed to be hurt by her words, or at the very least annoyed. Not amused.
She raised a brow. “You find that funny?”
“I like that you speak your mind.”
“I probably shouldn’t do that,” she said as she got to her feet and moved away from him. “You might get angry and turn back into a dragon.”
His smile vanished in an instant. He rose to his feet in one fluid motion, with his long black hair falling about his shoulders and his champagne eyes focused on her. “I doona harm the innocent, Grace. That man out there,” he said, pointing through the entrance, “wasna a human. He was a Dark Fae, and he was looking for this cave.”
Grace held up her hand to stop him. “Wait. Just...wait. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can handle all of this. It’s too bizarre. And why are you telling me? Shouldn’t you be demanding that I keep my mouth shut at what I’ve seen?”
“Would anyone believe you?”
She gawked at him, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that possibility herself. “I don’t believe what I saw.”
“Aye, you do.”
So she did. He didn’t need to rub it in. Couldn’t he see she was trying to pull herself together? Grace tossed the napkin in the basket and shrugged. “So what if I do?”
“You want to know more.”
Damn. Was she an open book for him to read? This was not going her way at all, especially since she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking no matter how hard she tried.
“So you’ll tell me all I want to know and let me leave?”
“Aye.”
At this, Grace laughed. “That’s not how this works.”
“And you’ve been in this situation before?” he asked with a quirked brow.
Grace opened her mouth, then promptly shut it. After a moment, she said, “Of course not. I’m merely going off what I’ve read normally happens.”
“And that would be what, lass?”
“You threaten to kill me if I tell anyone.”
Arian smiled, and it was devastating. Like a sucker punch right in her gut. Grace couldn’t look away from his mouth and the sexy way his lips tilted.
“If it would make you feel better, then I could threaten you,” he said with a half-smile that was by far too seductive.
She knew he was making fun of her, but Grace couldn’t get upset. She sounded like a lunatic, which was insane since she wasn’t the one who had been in the form of a dragon recently.
“You may no’ believe it, lass, but you’re safe with me.”
Grace scratched her nose. “With a dragon?”
“Aye.”
“You were a dragon,” she said. “A huge dragon with wings and fire and everything.”
He gave a nod. “I ken exactly what I am, lass. Have I hurt you in any way?”
“You know you haven’t.”
“And I willna. Unless you’re here to harm us.”
Grace couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter that welled up. It escaped her lips. She looked at Arian, wondering about his sanity now. “You’re a dragon. How could I possibly hurt you?”
“We have enemies. The Dark Fae are just one set. They want to out us to the world so that our existence would no longer be hidden from humans.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “So there are more of you?”
“Aye.”
“Many?”
“Enough.”
“Oh.” Shit. Grace lowered her gaze. There were dragons in Scotland.
And she had somehow walked into a cave where one had been. What were the odds that would happen?
He pivoted, causing her eyes to return to him. That’s when she caught sight of the dragon tattoo on his left leg. It was done in an amazing black and red ink that she’d never seen before.
The tattoo began at his left hip, where the head of the dragon was looking up at him. The body ran down his thigh with the dragon’s wings tucked and its claws looking as if they were sunk into Arian’s skin. The dragon’s tail dropped to his knee before curling around it.
The design was exquisite, but there was something about the placement that was incredibly sexy.
Grace had trouble breathing. No matter what her brain said, her body was attracted to Arian. It was partly because he was so gorgeous it hurt to look at him, but it was also because of the way he had held her so gently, how he spoke to her in that brogue that made her heart melt, and how he had struggled to help her up the mountain despite his own injuries.
He walked past her, and God help her, Grace turned and watched him, her gaze dropping to his amazing ass. She hastily turned back around when he grabbed his jeans at the entrance and put them on.
Grace drew in a deep breath. How was she expected to think after seeing something so mouthwatering as Arian’s body? She had felt that warm skin. She knew how hard his muscles were, how powerful he felt—even injured.
Arian came to stand in front of her with his jeans now fastened. “Sit down with me, Grace. Let me explain since you’ve already seen who I really am.”
When he turned and walked to the fire, she dropped her arms and followed. He was right. She wanted to know. She was insanely curious about him.
If she hadn’t seen him with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed he was a dragon. But she had seen. Up close and personal.
She sat on the opposite side of the fire from him. Grace watched as the flames danced between them, the firelight casting everything in a red-orange glow.
Their eyes met, and she waited for him to begin. Her heart was pounding slow and steady as a thread of exhilaration wound through her.
“We have lived on this realm since the beginning of time,” Arian began in his deep, sexy voice. “For millions of years, the only beings on this earth were dragons. It wasn’t airplanes that dominated the skies, but dragons.”
Grace was immediately sucked into his story. She held her breath, waiting for him to continue.
“There were millions of us. From the smallest dragons, about the size of a cat, to the largest, like me. We were divided into factions based upon color, and there was every color imaginable. Each group was ruled by a king. The one of us with the most power and magic, immortal and lethal. Then there was one above a Dragon King—the King of Kings.”
She was trying to imagine all the dragons in various sizes and colors upon the land instead of humans. Grace couldn’t fathom it.
“Life was good,” Arian continued. “I can still remember what it was like to look up and see dragons flying. Or to be in the sky and look down to see dragons dotting the ground. But those days are long gone.”
“What happened?” Grace asked.
Arian looked away for a moment. Then he said, “One day mortals
were here. Each Dragon King was suddenly changed into human form to communicate with them. We were then able to shift back and forth at will. We vowed to protect the humans.”
Grace worried that the next part wasn’t going to be so fun to hear. Especially by the way Arian’s face tightened.
“We had peace. For a time. The mortals reproduced at an astonishing rate. Soon we had to move dragons out of areas they had always inhabited to make room for the humans. Even some of the Kings took mortal females to their beds. Some wanted those females as their mates, or wives, if you will.”
She raised her brows. The best way to keep peace was an alliance, and what was a marriage but an alliance? It was the perfect solution, especially if there was love involved.
“One of the Kings, Ulrik, was about to take a female as his mate. Somehow Constantine, the King of Kings, discovered that Ulrik’s woman was planning to betray him. She wanted to kill him. Little did she know she would never have been able to do it.”
“Why?” Grace asked. “Was she weak?”
Arian smiled, but it was cold and hard. “The only one who can kill a Dragon King is another Dragon King. There isn’t a weapon in any of the realms that can kill us.”
Well, that certainly explained it. “Oh.”
“Con sent Ulrik away, and all the Kings gathered together and hunted down the female. We killed her for her attempted betrayal.”
“You killed her?” Grace asked in shock.
Arian nodded. “Ulrik brought her into his home. He clothed her, fed her, protected her, and loved her. Because to be taken as a mate to a Dragon King brings immortality to a human. So aye, Grace, we killed her. But Ulrik was angry at our actions when he found out. He wanted to be the one to end her life. In his grief and rage, Ulrik focused on those he felt responsible.”
“Humans,” Grace said.
“The mortals retaliated quickly and began to slaughter dragons left and right. There was no end in sight, and nothing any of us could do could stop Ulrik on his quest to rid this realm of humans.”