Garrett (Dragon Hearts 6)

by Carole Mortimer

  That was her hope, at least—

  “Billie?” A worried-looking Chloe stood in the doorway.

  Billie could only imagine how demented she must look as she huddled in the armchair hugging Garrett’s sword to her chest. Her eyes felt fevered in the pallor of her face, and her hair was still tangled from where Garrett’s fingers had gripped it earlier as she pleasured him to release.

  “Why don’t you join the rest of us downstairs in the sitting room?” Chloe prompted gently.

  “No, I… I’m fine where I am,” she stated firmly.

  “You’re obviously not fine.” Chloe came farther into the room and closed the door behind her.

  Tears blurred her vision. “I’m so sorry I’ve brought this danger here to you and your family.”

  “Our family,” Chloe corrected. “And danger goes with the territory of being the chosen mate of a dragon shifter.”

  “But this is my problem, not yours.”

  “We protect our own,” Chloe assured. “Is that Garrett’s sword?” she added worriedly.

  Billie’s arms tightened about the lethal, gleaming metal. “I’m keeping it safe until he gets back.”

  “We could take it downstairs with us,” Chloe placated.

  Billie snorted. “Have you tried lifting one of these things?”

  The other woman shook her head. “They used to hang on the wall in the entrance hall of the castle.”

  Billie nodded. “I threatened to kill Garrett earlier, and he brought me this to do it with.”

  “I… That’s…” Chloe gave a shake of her head. “You aren’t the first of the mates to have threatened to kill one of our arrogant men, but I’m pretty sure you’re the first one to be given his sword with which to do it.”

  “It was only a threat.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t actually have done it.”

  “I know that,” Chloe soothed. “But I really think it would be for the best if we all wait together downstairs for our men to come back.”

  And while they waited, four unsuspecting men would be meeting their end at the talons and jaws of six very angry dragons.

  Yes, they had been sent here to kill her, and no doubt they would have done it too if Nikolai hadn’t telephoned with the warning to expect them. Billie just couldn’t get her head round the fact Garrett and his brothers would be the ones doing the killing.

  “Billie—” Chloe broke off her cajoling as the door crashed open and four men burst into the room, guns in their hands.

  Four men who, from their swarthy appearance, Billie knew had to be Cezar Fescaru’s men.

  Chapter 13

  They looked like a cliché of what they thought members of the Mafia should look like, all wearing black, their hair in buzz-cuts, with muscles on their muscles.

  The guns they all carried were scary for Billie, a human, but she knew neither the guns nor the muscles would be a threat to Garrett and his brothers.

  Garrett’s sword, however…

  “What do you want?” Billie demanded. She pushed the sword aside before standing and positioning herself so that the chair was behind her, hoping none of the men noticed the glittering five-foot-long blade.

  Chloe gave her a sideways glance before moving to stand at her side, helping to block the view of the chair. “What have you done with Aeran?”

  “Dark-haired dude with a beard?” the man in the front answered, obviously the spokesman for the group. “He, the ladies, and a screaming baby are all safely locked in some sort of dungeon we found down in the basement.” He gave a malevolent grin. “Came real easy too. All we had to do was threaten to shoot one of the women in the head, the red-haired, mouthy one,” he grimaced, “and they all came along docile as you please.”

  “Shit.”

  Billie didn’t feel in the least reassured by Chloe’s comment, and she could only surmise that there was a problem with Aeran being shut in the dungeon. Which meant their only hope was that the other six men would come back sooner rather than later. When, no doubt, the fierce and unforgiving Grigor would make each and every one of these men pay for daring to threaten the “red-haired, mouthy” woman who could only be his mate, Gayle.

  Maybe if Billie and Chloe could keep these men talking to give the brothers more time to return to the castle?

  In the meantime, Billie allowed her inner turmoil to be felt and hoped that Garrett would sense that emotion in time. As it wasn’t a two-way thing yet, she had no idea whether or not Garrett had picked up on her distress call.

  “They’re at the castle!” The surprised expressions on the faces of Garrett’s brothers as they all turned to stare at him would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so dire.

  The six of them were momentarily on the ground as they decided what to do next. They’d left the castle barely an hour ago, cloaking their appearance as they flew over the surrounding forests and mountains, looking for the four men sent to North Wales to kill Garrett’s mate.

  Now he knew why they hadn’t been able to find them. “I can feel Billie’s fear.”

  “As I can feel Chloe’s,” Nathaniel bit out.

  Bryn nodded. “Teagan.”

  “Izzy,” Deryk rasped.

  Dylan scowled. “Holly.”

  Grigor’s nostrils flared. “If they harm one hair on Gayle’s head, I will rip them apart!”

  Garrett frowned. “What about Aeran?”

  Nathan growled. “I cannot sense him at all.”

  Which meant their brother was either unconscious or, worse, already dead.

  “Home!” Garrett didn’t linger to see if his brothers followed him as his dragon took to the sky, knowing that they would.

  Their mates were all in danger.

  The castle seemed deserted when they let themselves in ten minutes later. They searched all the rooms downstairs and found them empty.

  “Amelia!” Nathaniel let out a fierce growl as he bent to pick up his baby daughter’s favorite teddy bear from where it had been left abandoned on the floor of the sitting room.

  They all knew Amelia went nowhere without that bear. Nowhere voluntarily anyway.

  But all of the family knew that too. “It’s a sign,” Garrett decided quickly. “To let us know they haven’t gone out.”

  Grigor stilled, head tilted. “They didn’t leave at all,” he informed them grimly. “Something is blocking me from picking up Gayle’s thoughts clearly, but I can still feel her presence. Where the— The dungeon!” He strode quickly from the room, followed by his brothers. “If someone has locked Gayle in the dungeon again, then they’re going to feel the full force of her wrath raining down upon them once we let her loose.”

  Garrett winced, remembering Gayle’s fury a week ago when they’d locked her in the dungeon for her own safety.

  The dungeon was also the one place in the castle they wouldn’t have been able to sense Aeran. Three of the walls were twelve feet thick, the third reinforced steel bars. It had been built that way to keep any of the brothers confined if or when they threatened to go feral.

  “Fucking bastards! When I get out of here, I’m going to rip your balls off! It’s okay, baby girl, Mummy and Daddy will be back soon.”

  The brothers could hear Gayle’s angry ranting followed by her gentle crooning to Amelia as they clattered down the stone staircase in their heavy boots.

  “Where is Chloe?” Nathaniel took his daughter from Gayle as soon as the dungeon door had been unlocked, the baby instantly quieting as she retrieved her teddy and snuggled against her father’s neck.

  “She went upstairs to talk to Billie.” Gayle launched herself into Grigor’s waiting arms.

  “That fucking dungeon is lethal,” Aeran swore uncharacteristically as he stepped out into the passageway.

  “You know the reason it was built this way.” Bryn spoke over the top of Teagan’s head.

  Aeran glared at him. “On this occasion, it prevented me from escaping and rescuing Chloe and Billie.”

  Dylan frowned. “Your ey
es are glowing purple.”

  “Of course my eyes are glowing fucking purple!” Aeran growled. “Get out of my way. I’m going upstairs to rip someone’s throat out.”

  “Mind your language around Amelia,” Deryk cautioned as he held Izzy in his arms. “We don’t want her first word to be ‘fuck.’”

  “Then get the fuck out of my way—”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Grigor cut impatiently across Aeran’s angry outburst. “Where are Billie and Chloe now?”

  “Upstairs in Garrett’s suite—”

  Garrett didn’t stay to listen to the rest of the sentence. His mate was his only priority, and at the moment, Billie was in danger.

  Quite what he’d expected to find once he’d bounded up the stairs and along the hallway to his suite before kicking the closed door open, he had no idea.

  But it certainly wasn’t seeing Chloe holding three men dressed in black at gunpoint, and Billie standing over a fourth, prone man, with the point of Garrett’s sword pressed against his throat.

  “Make one more move,” she threatened the man as he turned his head to look at Garrett with pleading eyes, “and I’ll just let the sword slip out of my hands.”

  Garrett wasn’t sure how Billie had managed to pick up his sword in the first place. Five feet in length, it had been forged on Annwn, the Welsh underworld, and was made of a heavy metal not found in the human world. Only extreme anger—or fear—and the resulting adrenaline, could have given Billie the strength to lift it.

  She glanced over at Garrett. “About time you arrived. You got my message, then?”

  Garrett was having trouble holding back a smile. His mate had been attacked by four of Fescaru’s goons, had then attacked them right back with his sword, and yet she still found the time to rebuke him for his tardiness. She also made a sexy-as-hell little warrior, with her hair disheveled, eyes glittering, and her cheeks flushed with anger. Garrett’s cock had gone rock hard the moment he looked at her.

  “I did, yes.” He moved to take the sword from her hands as he saw they were starting to shake from the effort of holding the heavy metal. No doubt her adrenaline high was starting to fade.

  Billie frowned. “Is everyone else okay?”

  “They are,” Nathaniel answered as he strode into the room to retrieve the gun from his mate, his gaze possessive. “Amelia is feeling hungry,” he softly encouraged his wife to leave the room. “In fact, it would be for the best if all the ladies returned downstairs and left us to deal with putting out the trash currently cluttering up our castle,” he added in a hard voice.

  “I’m stay—”

  “Gayle,” Grigor gently rebuked his mate.

  She gave him a rebellious glare before the tension eased from her shoulders and her expression became slightly sheepish. “Give them a kick in the balls for me, then.” She stroked her hand tenderly down Grigor’s cheek.

  “Of course,” her mate indulged.

  “If there’s to be any ball-kicking, I’m going to do it.” Aeran strode furiously into the room. “Hello again, gentlemen.” He gave a smile that bared all his long and lethal dragon teeth. “Not feeling so brave now you no longer have a gun pointed at my sister-in-law’s head?” he mocked, the four men’s faces having gone white at the sight of those pointed teeth. “I suggest we take this…discussion, outside,” he prompted his brothers.

  Garrett placed his arm about Billie’s waist to pull her against his side. “When I get back, your bare bottom and I will be having a discussion about your having deliberately put yourself in danger by attacking these men.” He spoke softly, but knew, as a couple of his brothers grinned, that their preternatural hearing had allowed them to hear what he said.

  His mate’s cheeks blushed a bright red as she obviously knew they could too. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Billie joined the other ladies downstairs for a much-needed glass of brandy before returning to Garrett’s suite—their suite now?—to shower and change into loose-fitting gray sweatpants and a navy-blue camisole top edged with lace.

  She’d been terrified earlier when those four gunmen burst into the room. So terrified that, for a few minutes, her brain had seemed to freeze and she had once again forgotten all about those jujitsu classes she’d taken while at university. Which she now knew would have been of absolutely no use against her future brother-in-law Grigor, but the four intruders were ordinary men, with ordinary weaknesses.

  It had been easier than she thought to disarm two of the men, taking advantage of the remaining two not wanting to shoot their friends by accident as she kicked and chopped her way through them too. By which time, Chloe had picked up all the guns and had one of them pointed at the four men. Not quite finished, Billie had grabbed up Garrett’s sword and pointed it at the throat of the slowest of the men to get back onto his feet.

  Which was when Garrett and his brothers had arrived.

  Much like the cavalry in the movies, only after the main event.

  Not that she hadn’t been grateful for the arrival of the Pendragon brothers, because that sword had become very heavy in her hands very quickly.

  Billie was now trying hard not to think of what might be happening to those four men since Garrett and his brothers had taken them off to God knows where. She knew if those men had been handed to Nikolai, they would have met the same fate, but it was still a part of Garrett’s nature Billie was having trouble coming to terms with.

  Waiting for his return was agonizing for her. The anxiety she felt for his safety, despite his superior strength. Her angry adrenaline rush earlier had also intensified her arousal as the aphrodisiac she’d consumed earlier pulsed hotly through her veins.

  It was like having a raging fire deep inside her core, slicking her nether lips, the hardness of her sensitive nipples feeling abraded by even the soft cotton of her top. Despite being loose fitting, all her clothes—camisole top, panties, cotton sweatpants—still felt too confining. So much so, Billie wanted to rip them all off and rub herself naked all over Garrett’s muscle-hardened body—

  “I can smell your arousal from here.”

  Billie spun round to face her mate, anxiously taking in his appearance from head to toe. There was no visible blood on his clothes or skin.

  His gaze turned mocking. “I threatened them with my sword, and my brothers shifted into their dragons. Which pretty much frightened the men into pissing themselves.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Then we tied them up and left them out in the garage for Nikolai to come and collect in the morning.”

  She blinked. “You didn’t kill them?”

  “Oh, we wanted to,” Garrett acknowledged grimly as he closed the door behind him and placed his sword against the wall. “But out of consideration for our human mates’ sensibilities, we decided to let Volkov deal with them, as he’s dealt with the rest of the Romanians.”

  “Thank you.” Billie rushed across the room to throw herself into his arms. “Thank you!” She squeezed him tightly.

  “It won’t always be the case, Billie,” he warned.

  “I know that. I just…” She looked up at him. “I’d rather you didn’t kill those men because of me.”

  Garrett nodded. It was the only reason he and his brothers had shown restraint. “I’m aware of that.”

  “I’m surprised you managed to rein Aeran back.” Billie stepped back. “He seemed pretty angry earlier.”

  Garrett grinned. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen it, I’d forgotten my little brother has a temper.”

  “Aeran is as big as you are.”

  “But he’s two hours younger than me,” he said smugly.

  “I—”

  “Are you trying to avoid the subject again?” he taunted.

  The blush in her cheeks gave him his answer. “I’m not sure I deserve to be spanked for helping to save us all earlier.”

  Garrett’s humor evaporated at the memory of his fierce warrior woman standing over one of the Romanians, his sword in her hand as sh
e held the tip pointed against the man’s throat. “You also put yourself in danger by doing so.”

  “But—”

  “Billie.”

  “God, you’re such a pain.” She scowled. “At least go and return that damned sword to wherever it came from first, so that no one can even attempt to use it on you.”

  He raised his brows. “Fearful for my life, mate?”

  Billie narrowed her eyes. “I lifted it once. I’m sure I can do it again if I have to,” she warned.

  Garrett chuckled softly as he easily picked up his sword. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  “Fine.” She pushed her sweatpants and panties down to her ankles before stepping out of them.

  Garrett’s eyes narrowed as his mate stood in front of him completely naked from the waist down, the perfume of her arousal snaking like tendrils inside him. “You did that on purpose.”

  She raised challenging brows. “Too much for even your steely self-control?”

  The sooner he mated his woman, the sooner she would know that his emotions were currently nowhere close to being under his control, steely or otherwise. “Bend over the end of the sofa and wait there till I return,” he instructed gruffly.

  Garrett heard himself growling low in his throat the moment Billie did as he asked. The bare globes of her bottom were pushed upward and outward in that position, revealing that dark rosette between those plump cheeks and the glistening lips of her pussy.

  He didn’t just want to spank Billie’s ass, he wanted to own it.

  Wanted to own her.

  Every delicious inch of her.

  Chapter 14

  Billie felt her tension rising as she waited unmoving for Garrett to return. That tension grew to fever pitch when the door opened and then closed the promised five minutes later.

  Followed by silence.

  There was no sound of Garrett crossing the room.

  No brush of air against her skin to say he was standing behind her.

  No slap of his hand against her bared bottom cheeks.

  Just that tense—expectant, on her part?—silence.