Fence (Dragon Heartbeats Book 4)

by Ava Benton

  I held up my hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’ve already told you that.”

  “You’re not going to harm me. That’s what you said. Hurt and harm are two different things. You haven’t harmed me, but you’ve already hurt me.” Her chin trembled.

  “That was never my intent. Please, believe me.”

  “Why the hell should I? Who are you, damn it? No more answering questions with questions. Tell me, flat-out. Who are you, Fence?”

  There was so much hope there, still. She wanted an easy explanation, cut-and-dried, though there was no chance of one. There was nothing simple about a man who could heal as quickly as I did.

  “Promise me you won’t lose it when I tell you.”

  “Jesus Christ.” She looked away, out the window, disgusted.

  “Promise.”

  “Yeah, I promise. Out with it.”

  I hoped I wasn’t about to make a serious mistake. There was no way around it, regardless. I’d already proven there was something off about me. Something “other.”

  I had only to explain exactly how different I was. “You’re right about there being a connection between that ancient clan and me. It’s there. It’s strong.”

  “All right.” She tapped her foot, impatient—I wondered if she knew she was doing it.

  That tapping sound filled the small space while I searched for the right way to drop a bomb on an innocent girl.

  “What would you say if I told you I was part of that clan? That original clan?” My eyes never left her face, and the range of emotions which crossed it was a sight to see.

  She didn’t believe me. She was afraid to. She thought I was crazy. She hated me. She was afraid of me. She wished it were all over and I would leave. She wished she had never asked who I was.

  She knew I wouldn’t lie.

  Even so, she snorted. “I would say you look pretty damn good for a guy who’s over a thousand years old.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her eyes widened. She gulped.

  I didn’t look away.

  She needed to know how serious I was.

  “Don’t joke about this. Not right now.”

  “Do I look like I’m joking? Do I sound like it?” I held up my fully-healed hand. “What about this? Does this look like a joke to you?”

  She pointed. “That’s impossible.”

  “You’re looking at it. You saw it with your own eyes. You wanted me to get stitches not fifty minutes ago. And yet, here we are. I’m fully healed. What does that tell you?”

  “It tells me I’m hallucinating.”

  “No.” As sharp as a whip.

  She flinched.

  “You don’t get to play cute now. You know what you know. You wanted to find out more about me, right? This is it. This is what I’ve been trying to avoid telling you—one of the things I’ve been avoiding, at any rate.”

  “There’s more?” she whispered. So full of dread.

  “Yes. There is. The first thing you have to know is this: I’m part of the clan you’ve been researching. One of its original members. I was born over one thousand years ago.”

  She blinked hard, fast, like she might faint. I took a step toward her without thinking, my protective instincts working of their own volition, which made her seize up in terror.

  “No! Don’t touch me!”

  I stayed where I was, hands by my sides. “You know it’s true.”

  “And that’s supposed to help or something?” she laughed wildly.

  My heart went out to her. I could only imagine what she was going through.

  “There’s more.” Might as well get it all over with at once.

  “Are you Santa Claus, too?” she asked, still laughing. “Oh, God, what’s happening right now?”

  “Take a deep breath,” I advised.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she snarled, laughter dying in her throat. “Let me guess. There’s a reason you’ve been alive all this time, but you look like you’re only a few years older than me. Right? There’s a reason why you heal so quickly. What is it?”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “What a surprise.”

  “Fair enough. I only wanted to warn you.” I watched closely, ready to catch her if she fainted this time. “The reason the clan has been a secret for so long is because we aren’t human. We’re dragon shifters.”

  Her face went blank. No emotion whatsoever. I waited, holding my breath.

  She whispered only one word. “Sgiathail.”

  “Winged,” I replied, nodding slowly.

  She looked at the floor, hands behind her on the tabletop. “I don’t understand any of it. How is it possible? I’ve never seen anything like this, ever, in any of the texts. People who shift into dragons. I mean, there have always been legends about dragons, but not dragon people.”

  “I’m not a dragon person. I’m a dragon shifter.”

  “Right, right. Dragon shifter.” Her voice sounded far away as she stared at some middle space between us.

  Where was she? Anywhere but in the same flat as me. Maybe anywhere but in her body, where nothing made sense anymore.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” She raised her head, eyes burning, sparkling with unshed tears. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Excuse me? I was only trying to—”

  “I know what you were trying to do. You were trying to apologize for being who you are.” She stood up straight, chin raised in defiance. “Why don’t you try apologizing for lying to me? How about that? Or for using me, which I now know for sure you were doing? I got too close to the truth about you, didn’t I? And that cave!” She smacked her forehead with one palm. “The clan was still there, weren’t they? Your family. But they left in a hurry. And you didn’t want me going back there to find out anything else.”

  “Ciera.”

  “No, please. Don’t lie anymore. I’m right, aren’t I? All this, it was all a matter of finding out what I knew. Right?”

  I wanted more than anything I had ever wanted in my long, long life to tell her how wrong she was. That I cared for her, nothing more. That there had never been anything but an interest in her. Because right now, I didn’t care nearly as much about what she knew as I did about how she felt. I didn’t care about the danger she posed the clan nearly as much as I did about holding her, begging her forgiveness, promising her anything under the sun as long as she was happy and safe.

  “At first,” I admitted.

  “At first?” She burst out laughing again. “Oh, come on, Fence. At first is, like, less than thirty-six hours ago. When we met. We haven’t known each other long enough for there to be an at first.”

  “That’s your perception.”

  “Don’t gaslight me,” she warned. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong when facts are facts.”

  “Our facts are different. We know things you don’t know. For instance, it’s a fact that I’ve lived as long as I have, whereas to you, that’s an impossibility. It’s a fact that a human would’ve needed stitches in their hand if they had a wound like the one I suffered earlier. I’ve already healed.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “So, time moves more slowly for you, but more quickly at the same time? Is a day-and-a-half, like, three months on dragon time?”

  I bristled at her dismissive tone. “When I know something, I know it. And I know you’re much more than just an obstacle to be pushed aside or placated with a night on the town.”

  “Now you know that? Now that I’m around thirty seconds away from kicking you out of my apartment?”

  “Don’t do that. Please.” I went to her before taking the time to think twice. “Don’t send me away now.”

  “Don’t touch me. I told you not to come near.” I took her by the wrists when she lifted her hands in attack, slapping at my chest. She was roughly as effectual as a kitten trying to beat up a mountain lion. I let her take out her aggression, however, knowing
she needed to—and when she had exhausted herself, I let her collapse against me.

  “I hate you,” she sobbed, shaking in my arms.

  “I know.” Just then, for the first time ever, I hated myself right along with her.

  13

  Ciera

  I never understood how quickly life could change.

  Sure, I’d lost my parents in the blink of an eye. One moment, they were on their way home after celebrating their anniversary over dinner. The next, a drunk driver had crossed the center line and hit them head-on. They were alive, then they were gone. And everything changed. But I was too young to understand.

  And Seanmhair. Her loss might not have seemed so sudden if she had only told me she was sick. I would’ve had time to process, to say goodbye. But stubborn her, she’d kept it to herself. Didn’t want to disturb my studies. Once she was gone, my entire world had shifted. Nothing made sense anymore.

  Just when things had started to calm down.

  Just when I’d gotten a hold on my life again.

  I meet a dragon.

  He sat on the floor, his back to the wall. I sat on the sofa, my hands clasped between my knees. We weren’t far from each other—we probably could’ve stretched out our arms and touched fingertips—but there were ways to measure distance which didn’t take inches into account. Once I’d first gotten over the shock of who he really was, we could’ve been miles apart.

  Every hour we’d spent talking after that had closed the distance. I’d gone from hating him to wanting to hurt him to resenting him, the strength of the passion lessening, until there was nothing but resignation and an attempt at understanding by the time the sky began to lighten. I wanted to understand him.

  “I can’t believe it’s almost morning.” I yawned not a split second later, and Fence chuckled.

  “I can’t remember the last time I spent all night talking with a woman.”

  “I’ve never spent all night talking with a man.” He raised an eyebrow. Amazing how that would’ve made me blush to the roots of my hair before I knew him the way I did now.

  “You must be exhausted,” he observed, rather than teasing me.

  “I am—but I doubt I could sleep.” My mind buzzed out of control.

  Imagine living for a thousand years. Seeing what he’d seen, living through the world’s events. He’d explained how secluded his life was, so it wasn’t as if he’d been in the middle of the action, but he had watched from afar. I wondered if it didn’t feel a little like being God, looking down at humanity as it built itself up, tore itself down and started again.

  “You should try.” There he went again. Acting like my protector.

  If I hadn’t been so bone tired—not to mention a little nervous around him—I would’ve told him off.

  “What will you do? Go back to your hotel?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll stay here.”

  “Ah-ha. Don’t you think you’re forgetting something?” When all I got was a blank look, I continued. “I never asked you to spend the night. You didn’t even ask permission. But you were ready to tear that guy’s head off for winking at me yesterday.”

  And when I considered just how easy it would’ve been for him to do something like that, I felt a little sick.

  He wasn’t amused. “I can’t leave you alone now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wouldn’t feel right leaving you unguarded when you know everything.

  “Unguarded…?” The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Did you just tell me things that could get me killed? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Killed, no.”

  “Hurt, then?”

  He grimaced. “I assumed you would jump to the correct conclusion. That was my mistake, not your own. You see, whoever is responsible for the disappearance of the clan might be out there somewhere. Looking for anyone with information to their existence.” His voice was as gentle as I’d ever heard it, but it did nothing to soften the blow.

  I reeled from the implications of what he was trying to explain, the nightmare unspooling in my head. “No. That makes no sense,” I breathed. “What would they do? Wander around, sniffing out evidence of research? I mean, that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, isn’t it?”

  “Powerful creatures have the power to do a lot of things,” he pointed out.

  “Powerful creatures. Like whom?”

  A shrug. “We don’t know yet, but it would take a considerable amount of power to take down a dragon clan.”

  I could hardly make my lips bend to create the words. “Witches? Wizards? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Perhaps. It’s most definitely possible.”

  “My God.” I leaned my head against the back of the sofa, face toward the ceiling. It got worse with every new piece of information he revealed. Witches and wizards. They weren’t just for Halloween and gamers anymore.

  He sat beside me, taking the chance of drawing me close. I let him. After everything we’d talked about over those long, bleak hours, there was an intimacy between us that transcended everything else. It felt natural, being close to him then. I rested my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes as his arms slid around me. A sigh escaped my lips before I had the chance to hold it back—not a sigh of passion, but of relief.

  “I would never let anything happen to you. I need you to know that.”

  “I do,” I murmured, eyes still closed. He smelled wonderful. The heartbeat under my ear was strong and reassuring. He was there. With me. He wouldn’t let any harm come to me. I could count on him. The rhythm of his heart lulled me into relaxation, and my muscles loosened for the first time in hours. I realized adrenaline was mostly responsible for keeping me alert up to that point. True, bone-deep exhaustion was speeding toward me like an express train. I saw it in the distance, bearing down.

  “I’m sorry for all of this. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to hear.” His lips were warm and tender against the top of my head, and that was good, too. So right. So necessary.

  “I don’t understand any of it, still. But I want to. I do.” I craned my neck to look up into his eyes, which were looking down at me with an expression I’d never seen before from a man. If I had to put my finger on it, I’d call it desire mixed with protectiveness. He ran the side of his hand over my cheek, and a slight tremor raced from that spot straight down my spine.

  “I want you,” he murmured.

  There was an edge to his voice, the hint of something other than himself. A deeper growl somewhere in the background. Another tremor, this one making me clutch him a little harder as my body responded. I grasped in vain for something to say, but the gentle brush of his fingertips across my lips stopped me.

  “I don’t mean right now, right here. Well, all right, maybe I do mean it,” he chuckled darkly, “but it’s not right yet. Not until you’re sure you want me, too.”

  “I do,” I whispered, urgent, not caring when what was left of my logical mind screamed at me to take a cold shower and reassess the situation. I was talking to a dragon, for God’s sake. Locked in the arms of a dragon. I had no idea what it meant to be with somebody like him.

  But I wanted to find out.

  He only shook his head. “Not yet. You’ll understand why. Besides, I didn’t mean I only wanted your body—though that would be enough,” he added, raising one eyebrow and letting his voice lower to a seductive growl that sent a wave of heat through me. “I want all of you. Your mind and your humor and your kindness. All of you.”

  “Even my clumsiness?”

  He smiled. “Even that. I couldn’t have you without it, I guess. And I like having an excuse to keep catching you.”

  It was all surreal, something I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t dreaming. Yet even though my intellect told me things like this didn’t happen, my heart knew better. Our breath mingled as he leaned closer, and I closed my eyes just before he gave me what I didn’t even know I had been craving.

  His lips
were gentle, soft, but only for that first brief moment of contact. I leaned into the kiss, and that was all he seemed to need. His arms tightened, his mouth pressed against mine with urgent need.

  My fingers sank into his thick hair, holding his head close as passion flared dangerously hot, almost hot enough to scare me a little because I had never, ever felt so close to the edge of sanity.

  There was nothing sane about what was happening to us, and I didn’t care. I loved it. I wanted more. I moaned when his tongue swept the inside of my mouth, and his deep groan stirred an even deeper heat between my thighs. I was so ready to give myself to him. I slid one leg over his, and he took my thigh in his big, capable hand.

  “Wait,” he breathed, pulled back. “I don’t think I can take much more of this without taking it too far.”

  I almost pouted and whimpered like a disappointed little girl. But he was right. There was something he was waiting for, and we clearly hadn’t hit that point yet, so it was best that we stop before there was no stopping. I touched my forehead to his shoulder, breathless.

  “You really should try to sleep,” he whispered, stroking my back. Even that sweet, gentle touch made my nerves jump and sizzle.

  “Will you stay with me?”

  “I told you I would.”

  “No.” I looked him in the eye. “I mean, stay with me. Not on the couch.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust myself, being in bed with you.” He stroked my cheek, my chin, swept his thumb over my lips.

  “I don’t think I want you to be trustworthy,” I giggled, “but really, I just need to be close to you.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Another kiss—shorter, but no less sweet—and I got up from the couch on shaky legs. I was still wearing last night’s dress, still in last night’s makeup and everything.

  The rest of the world had sort of fallen away once he’d started talking. I went straight to the bathroom and slathered cold cream on my face without closing the door first.

  “Women still use cold cream?” he asked.

  I could tell by the sound of the creaking bedsprings that he’d sat down. My skin tingled at the thought of sharing my bed with him.