Dragon's Honor (The Dragon Corps Series Book 1)

by Michaela Kendrick

  Those thoughts vanished when the door to the study clicked closed behind them and Ellian rounded on Cade.

  “Let us be honest with one another, Mr. Williams.”

  Alarm bells went off in Cade’s head. Ellian’s eyes were narrowed, and his face was expressionless in a way Cade recognized all too well. This was the look of a man who knew the underworld. Ellian Pallas was an arms trafficker, he remembered too late, and he had been so consumed with thoughts of the delicate trophy wife that he hadn’t paid nearly enough attention to the real threat.

  Was it a play? No, he did not think so. But he remembered the flat tone Ellian had used in the other room as he summoned his wife to his side. There was a threat there, and there was one here, too. Had he, too, felt the heat arcing between Cade and his wife? Cade knew enough, at least, to lie about that. No amount of honor and promises could convince a man that a Dragon was no rival—and even a Dragon did not have enough confidence to tempt the wrath of an arms trafficker.

  Ellian let the silence hang, knowing what Cade was wondering.

  “Very well,” Cade said eventually. “Speak plainly, then.” In his pockets, his hands had made fists.

  “We are both men of the world, are we not?” Ellian went to a sideboard, almost ostentatiously turning his back on Cade. I do not fear you, the gesture said.

  “You might say that.” He watched his host pour two glasses of brandy, every movement studied. The glasses were picked without Ellian looking at them, and he poured from the crystal bottle with practiced elegance. When Ellian returned, Cade took one of the glasses at random and did not drink. He met Ellian’s eyes. “Perhaps you should speak more plainly.”

  To his surprise, Ellian smiled at last. It was a bitter smile, but he toasted and downed his brandy in a gulp.

  Damn. There was no polite way for Cade to refuse to drink now. He raised his own glass and took a sip, rolling it across his tongue as if savoring. He tasted no bitterness, saw no residue on the top of the liquid, and swallowed reluctantly. It was good. Of course it was good. From the carpets to the hardwood desk, Ellian clearly bought only the best.

  “I like you, Williams.” Ellian settled onto one of the couches and gestured for Cade to join him. When Cade had chosen a seat, Ellian leaned forward, still holding the empty tumbler. “We understand one another, I think. We have both seen all this world has to offer—both in luxury and in pain.”

  Cade felt his eyebrows rise before he cold stop them.

  “And as you said I should speak more plainly, let me say it in the most basic terms.” Ellian smiled. “You and I, Mr. Williams, are both very bad men. We have both done very bad things. I do not think it is presuming too much to say that.”

  Cade looked down into his drink. How to respond to that?

  “You do not need to say anything,” Ellian assured him, eerily perceptive. “You were a Dragon. Anyone with even the most tangential affiliation to the world of war knows what the Dragons do. I know some of the ones you have destroyed—and I know there is no way you could have done so honorably.”

  Cade took a gulp of the brandy.

  “I should go.”

  “No, I think not. I need you, Mr. Williams, don’t you see? I need a man who understands the worst the world can offer.”

  “Why?” Cade asked harshly. “If you have yourself, why do you need another one? As a confidant?” He looked up, knowing his bitterness showed too clearly. “I don’t want to remember,” he said simply.

  “Then you are, indeed, exactly what I require.” Ellian settled back. “Why? Yes, always people ask me why. Think, Mr. Williams. You and I have done terrible things. We know what darkness lies in the world. Aryn…does not.”

  Cade’s eyebrows shot up, and Ellian laughed.

  “You disbelieve me? Perhaps because she’s from Ymir?” He smiled. “Believe me, she was sheltered from the worst of the Warlord’s excesses. You have met her. You have seen her hope, her purity. There are those who call me a fool—yes, to my face—for falling in love with her so quickly. But try to understand. Seeing a woman like that on Ymir, I could no more have left her than I could have snuffed out a star. Leaving such innocence there to be corrupted would be a crime.”

  The poor bastard even had friends who told him what this temptress was, and he could not see. Cade wanted to sink his face into his hands.

  “Mr. Williams.” Ellian’s voice was smooth, deep. “Help me protect my wife. You do not want to use your skills to harm, and I can understand that. It is clear that you are a man of honor. Use your skills, then, to protect. Protect Aryn. She is my everything.”

  Cade looked up. Ellian’s dark eyes seemed to draw him in. Was this truly an arms trafficker? A man who dealt with the very worst the world had to offer? A distant voice in Cade’s head told him that Ellian was not trustworthy. Why, after all, had he been on Ymir to begin with?

  And something tickled in his mind—a pattern, the remnants of his Dragon training coming to the fore. He ignored it. He was not that man. He would not spend the rest of his life jumping at shadows.

  “You hesitate.” The voice was so kind, so understanding. “Perhaps it is me you do not wish to deal with. And you would be right not to—I will not lie. But surely you can see that Aryn is innocent of my business. Sometimes I think she suspects…”

  “You do?” Something in the man’s tone caught Cade’s interest.

  “She is no fool, my wife. And she is kind at heart.” Ellian’s face was inscrutable. “Sometimes I do not know why she remains.”

  Your money.

  But it was beyond Cade to say that—and he realized with a sinking feeling that it was beyond him to walk away, either. Ellian Pallas, for all that he was likely a murderer, was in some ways no more than a man who had loved unwisely. And Aryn, even if she was everything Cade feared, still did not deserve to be used as leverage against her husband. With a shiver, Cade remembered the things he had seen as a Dragon. No one deserved that sort of death.

  Talon had known that where Cade could walk away from an offer to rejoin the Dragons, he could not walk away from someone who stood before him and pleaded for his help. This was not the Major asking Cade to kill brutally—it was a man asking to know that his wife was safe.

  “All right.”

  “What?” Ellian raised an eyebrow, looking over.

  “I’ll do it.” Cade finished his brandy in a gulp; he needed it. “I’ll take the job.”

  “Excellent.” Ellian smiled. “Mr. Williams, I think you will be exactly what I need.”

  The smile did not reach his eyes.

  Chapter 6

  She was clearly going crazy.

  Aryn paced around her stateroom, not even sparing a glance for the gorgeous view of the city outside. New Arizona was at its finest in the winter, so cold that it was impossible to get from place to place without shivering violently—and, high society being what it was, winter had thus been designated The Season. While it made no sense to Aryn, she normally appreciated the drifting snow and glittering lights that graced the long nights.

  Not now. In the past several hours, she’d picked a fight with Ellian and proceeded to have remarkably inappropriate fantasies about a man she’d just met. Nothing she had done could drive them from her mind. Running, kickboxing, and even archery had failed to soothe her, meditation proceeded to empty everything from her mind except the fantasies themselves, and she’d realized within moments that a bath was a terrible mistake.

  So she was pacing. She was pacing and she was not thinking about that man. She was most certainly not thinking about him coming through the door behind her, and about how her heart would leap when she heard his footsteps. He would be staring at her, his eyes burning as they had when he first saw her, when he thought…

  What had he thought?

  No. She was not thinking about this. Not at all.

  She went to the mirror and stared at her face determinedly. If she were going crazy, wouldn’t she be able to see it? She frowned at her
reflection, and then, hearing footsteps coming down the hall, she shoved down the leap of anticipation—it was not Mr. Williams, Ellian disliked Mr. Williams—she turned with a smile on her face for her husband.

  “My dear.” He paused at the door, looking her over. “You look very beautiful tonight.”

  “Thank you.” Aryn smiled and went to him, laying her hands on his chest as she kissed him. She should try to be a good wife, shouldn’t she? To do the little things that showed Ellian she loved him. If she let her eyes drift closed, she could imagine…

  No. That was the insanity again.

  “How are you this evening?” A banal question. Anything to keep from asking about Mr. Williams.

  “It has been…a trying day.” To her surprise, a shadow flitted across Ellian’s face.

  “What happened?”

  For a moment, she thought he would confide in her. She could see turmoil beneath the surface, the look of distaste he sometimes wore after particularly bad meetings. There was something new there, as well. She frowned. Ellian looked…unsettled. Yes. Unsettled. It was an emotion she had never seen in him. He opened his mouth to speak and she watched him, waiting. Worried.

  Then his face closed off.

  “It is not important.”

  A single glance told her how unwelcome any argument would be.

  “Of course,” Aryn said simply. She stepped away.

  “Mr. Williams just left.”

  “Oh?” Aryn tossed a smile over her shoulder and went to pour them both drinks. Anything to keep from looking at him. Good riddance to the Dragon, and God willing, in a few days she would have forgotten him.

  “He’s agreed to take the job.”

  She froze momentarily, ice flooding her veins. Heat followed, unstoppable, at the thought of this man standing at her shoulder, watching her, green eyes burning…

  “I see.” She finished pouring the drinks and brought one to him.

  “What is it?” Ellian frowned at her.

  “I…well, I didn’t think you liked him very much.” Aryn gave a shrug and took a sip of the sweet liqueur, savoring the burn as it slid down her throat. “I must have been wrong.”

  Ellian watched her for a moment.

  “No, you’re…very observant.”

  “Then why hire him?” It was an honest question, even if she was far too curious about this man. And as flattery never hurt, she added, “There must be thousands of bodyguards on New Arizona that are desperate to work for you.”

  “He was the best man for the job,” Ellian said, and there were layers of meaning in his voice that she could not decode. He looked closely at her as he drank. “What do you think of him?”

  This, she had been ready for.

  “Darling, you know I know nothing about soldiers.” Aryn gave him a smile. But before she could control herself, the panic rose up again. She could not do this. She simply couldn’t. “But I was thinking, I really don’t need—”

  “Not this again, Aryn.”

  “Oh, but my love, what are you afraid of?” She went to him and reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “No one’s ever tried to hurt me, have they? And I don’t see why they should in any case—surely your wealth shouldn’t make anyone so angry as all that.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, but it was also something she couldn’t stop herself from asking every once in a while. Why, exactly, did Ellian insist so often that people would hurt Aryn for what he did? Two years since moving here, she still did not have an answer. Ellian traded in supplies, didn’t he? She never truly let herself ask. Not really. She just made references every so often.

  And every time, his face went stony.

  “I have told you that such things are not for you to worry about.”

  Aryn nodded as if she were chastened, and looked down so that he could not see her eyes flash. Something about Ellian today put her on edge, and she could not say why.

  No, she decided after a moment. She was on edge today. Ellian was as he always was. She blinked at her own foolishness and took a sip of her drink.

  “What is it?” Ellian’s voice was one part curious, one part warning. “Why argue again about this once it has been settled, Aryn?”

  “It’s nothing. Only foolishness.” She tried to find words. “The same foolishness as before.”

  “Really.” His voice was skeptical. “Do you not like Mr. Williams?”

  “I worried because you did not like him at first.” The right answer came automatically. “I know you make your living by knowing who to trust.”

  He softened slightly.

  “This man can be trusted, Aryn. He won’t let anything happen to you—I’m sure of it.”

  Aryn nodded jerkily. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. There was something in Ellian’s eyes…

  And then it was gone.

  “If you trust him, then I trust him.” To be loyal to you. But she did not say that.

  “Excellent.” He settled onto one of the sofas by the window. “Come join me.”

  “Do you not have to work?” She settled in beside him, his arm around her shoulders and her bare feet tucked up. It was rare, lately, that Ellian could spend an evening with her.

  “I should be working,” he admitted.

  “You’ve been working so hard lately. Perhaps you’ve earned a rest.” She reached up to run her fingers through his hair and pulled her fingers back when he moved his head away slightly.

  “Results earn a person rest,” he said flatly. “Not work.”

  Aryn nodded so that he could see. This was the Ellian she knew—indeed, the one she had once hoped she could love. Irritable and snappish, he was nonetheless a man who held himself to the very highest standards and expected the same of others. He was not a pampered rich man, nothing like the Warlord’s lackeys on Ymir who became lazy and cruel, taking men and women as it pleased them and using them for toys. No, Ellian had built his business from the ground up, and he worked as hard as anyone she’d ever met.

  They sat in silence, the snow drifting and the lights glittering, and Aryn felt herself, at long last, begin to return to normal. Ellian’s presence at her side brought her back to the early days, when they would spend their evenings together and he would ask her to share her dreams. She always blushed and stammered. Someone from Ymir had only one dream, and it was not one she could admit to Ellian, who dealt with the Warlord—everyone needs supplies, Aryn, and some of those went to your friends, you know—and any other dreams she might have had over the years were so far out of reach that she had never entertained them. To study science? To paint? To sing? She could not think of anything she enjoyed, no matter how he coaxed her.

  She asked him to tell her his dreams, in those days: where he’d come from, how he built his empire. But he was reticent then, and he was still reticent now. She saw little signs that he was beginning to trust her more and more each year, each month—sometimes even each day. But that had been hard-fought. He said he liked to protect her from the way the world worked, and she had never been able to convince him that she knew. She saw. She had grown up on Ymir.

  And now a bodyguard…

  Awareness returned in a jolt and Aryn took a deep breath to steady herself, draining her drink.

  “What are you thinking?”

  She looked over, frowning. She did not know what to say to that. Ellian rarely asked such things.

  “I was thinking about when I first came here.”

  “You didn’t know how to work the showers,” he said, smiling.

  “I did so!” Both the laugh and the blush came automatically.

  “Because you learned on the ship, coming from Ymir.”

  “Oh, hush.”

  He smiled over at her, and for a moment it was as it had been at the start: hope palpable between them. The sense that they might build any life they chose, that his love for her was unshakable and her loyalty to him might become tenderness in time. She set down her glass and reached out to lay a hand on his chest.
/>
  “Ellian…”

  “What is it?” His voice was low.

  “I know you’ve been troubled lately.” She took a deep breath. “And I want you to know you can tell me anything.”

  “Why would you say that?” His face closed off abruptly; under her fingers, it was as if she felt his chest go from living flesh to stone.

  Aryn drew back, confused.

  “I only meant…” Her voice trailed off, and with his eyes flat, she knew she must say something. But what? How had she offended him? “Ellian, you try to protect me. You always try to protect me. But I’m your wife. I don’t want you to suffer in silence because you feel you have no one to confide in.”

  The words had sounded perfectly acceptable in her head—even in the still air, she could not hear anything wrong with them. And yet Ellian’s nostrils flared and she could see a muscle working in his jaw, his teeth clenched.

  “I have work to do.”

  He set down his glass and was gone, Aryn staring after him, biting her lip.

  What had she done wrong?

  Chapter 7

  When Cade slammed his way back into the hotel room, he didn’t even startle at the sight of Talon lounging in one of the chairs. Another suit adorned the man’s tall frame, and Cade leaned over to frown at it as he tore his own suit off. Talon’s, he noted, seemed to have been made to de-emphasize muscles and stature—and it was impossible to tell at a glance if the man was armed.

  With a Dragon, however, the answer to that question was always yes. It was the one habit Cade never lost.

  “So you didn’t get the job?” Talon asked as Cade stripped off his clothes and pulled on his usual sweater and work pants.

  “No. I got it.” Cade looked around the spacious room, wanting to prowl, to fight. “You’re paying for all this, right?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” The corner of Talon’s mouth twitched as he watched Cade wrench open the minibar and pull out several little bottles of liquor. “So what are you drinking?”