Hoarding Secrets (A Dragon Spirit Novel Book 3)

by C. I. Black

  “Diablo—”

  The beast would never allow that kind of restraint. “What?”

  “If Grey doesn’t say it, thank you.”

  Diablo flashed his teeth. “Oh, Grey will say it.” But the truth was, Grey didn’t have to. The silver drake had protected the puzur, not to mention he had it bad enough. He was inamorated.

  “I’ll call with more information.”

  “Call, huh?” That was new, but given Nero’s headache, it wasn’t surprising if the dugga was giving up on telepathic communication for a while.

  “Yeah. I’ll call.” Nero bared his teeth and growled.

  “Whatever.” Diablo stepped through the gate and into a shadowy, damp passage. At the far end, blinding light blazed and a crowd roared. A few feet ahead of him stood two dragons, the first an orange drake Diablo didn’t recognize, in a stout human male. From the drake’s aura, he wasn’t very old and likely didn’t have any earth magic. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, while a small, female yellow drake — the second dragon there — in a beige pantsuit with an aura indicating she was about the same age as Diablo turned to face him.

  The yellow drake flashed her teeth, and Diablo didn’t doubt it was half in aggression and half in sexual invitation. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I’m taking the last fight.”

  “It’s my fight,” the orange drake said.

  Between one heartbeat and the next Diablo gated to his side and rammed his fist into the drake’s throat. His head hit the wall behind him and he sagged to the floor. “You were saying.”

  The orange drake gasped, his mouth opening and closing but unable to say anything.

  Diablo turned his glare on the yellow drake, who gestured toward the mouth of the passage and the underground fighting ring. “The fight is all yours.”

  His beast growled. He’d let whoever his opponent was get in a few good shots. Hopefully, the drake could hit. Then the fight would be all his.

  CHAPTER 42

  She woke with a start, staring at a white ceiling, her pulse racing, and something soul-deep within her aching. There was something she needed to do. Something she needed to remember. Someone—?

  An urgency filled her, but she couldn’t figure out why. She’d been doing something? No, she’d been with someone?

  Her gut clenched, filled with icy panic, and she sat up. She lay in a bed in a room she didn’t recognize, with a man she didn’t recognize sitting on the floor and sagging over the edge of the bed beside her. A strange blue fire blazed around him and licked over the blanket toward her.

  She jerked back and he wrenched up with a gasp as if he, too, had just been asleep. He was enormous, with broad muscular shoulders straining the fabric of his T-shirt that was crusted with—

  She had no idea what and didn’t want to know. A towel had been wrapped tight around his chest, but a bright red stain — oh, my God, that was blood! — had seeped through, revealing what had to be a massive, untreated injury. His pale gray eyes locked on her were filled with pain and hope and something she couldn’t quite place that made her insides squirm.

  She scrambled to the far side of the bed before realizing she wore a crusted and torn dress. Blood coated her hands and splattered up her forearms. What the hell had happened to her? Had she injured him? Had she—?

  Her mind stuttered. She. There wasn’t anything else but she. No name, no sense of who she was, only what. A green drake. But she wasn’t in a green drake’s body.

  Whoever he was, he was going to regret holding her and hurting her. But those thoughts didn’t feel right. Somehow, deep in her soul, she knew — just like she knew she was a she and a green dragon — he wouldn’t hurt her, he’d protect her, and she needed to protect him.

  “You’re all right. You’re safe,” he said, his voice a deep, exhausted rumble.

  “Where am I?”

  “The hotel room in Vancouver.” His gaze searched hers, but she had no idea what he was looking for.

  “The hotel room,” she said. “This is a specific room?”

  “Yes.” He shifted and gasped, his expression tightening with pain and his arm pulling tight against the bloodstained towel.

  She shifted toward him before realizing what she was doing and managed to stop before getting within reach. She didn’t know who he was, why he was on fire but not on fire, or even who she was. And yet everything within her said he belonged to her and she to him. Except she couldn’t figure out anything else beyond that. “Do I know you?”

  “I think the first question I should answer is who you are.” His hand shifted on top of the comforter, inching closer to hers but not making contact. Blue flames licked over his fingers and her throat tightened, the need to say something clogging it, but the words wouldn’t form in her head.

  “No, you need to tell me why you’re on fire and not screaming in pain?”

  He frowned, then realization swept across his expression. “That’s how you see it.”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  “I’m not really on fire.” He drew in a ragged, wet breath and the pain returned to his expression.

  The ice in her gut squeezed tight and swept up her chest around her heart. “Answers later. You need help, you need—”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’ll stop. Eventually.”

  Something flickered at the back of her mind. They’d had this conversation before. But not here. Someplace else.

  “Why can’t I remember?”

  “You have a condition. Every time you fall asleep, you forget who you are.”

  She felt like they’d talked about this, too. “But I know I know you. I just don’t know how.”

  A hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “You do know me. Your name is Ivy. You’re a green drake and you have the magic ability to read memories from objects.”

  “Magic abilities?”

  “Yes.”

  She snorted as she ran his words over again in her head. “You didn’t answer my question. How do I know you?”

  He raised his hand in an offer for her to take it. “Say si and find out for yourself.”

  “Si?” Blinding white light flashed across her sight and energy snapped through her body. The urge to wrap her essence in the blue fire flickering over him surged through her, and she grabbed his hand.

  For a second there were two of him, the man sitting at her bedside battered and bloody, and the man standing before her in the Handmaiden’s chamber in Court, his gaze locked on her as if she were a lifeline he hadn’t realized he’d needed.

  He. Grey. A dragon who couldn’t forget, the opposite to her, because she couldn’t remember.

  The ache in her soul eased, as if just connecting with him filled her, completed her. His memory jumped to them in the hotel bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub and him offering to share a memory with her to ease the ache in her soul. He knew her. He loved her. He’d fight for her — and with her — and he’d die for her.

  Memories flashed through her. His memories. Their first meeting, both fights in the Handmaiden’s residence, their battle in Seville, and how he’d clutched her unconscious body in the dragon Court’s arena and defied Tobias’s order to hand her over.

  But there was also the sense that this wasn’t everything. Along with his affection was a sadness that he’d lost her locket and she was missing essential memories about who she was. And beneath that a tight, painful thread of fear that their soul-bond wouldn’t survive her memory loss, as well as the determination that he would respect her choice and not push if she didn’t reciprocate his love.

  “How could you think that?” A purr bubbled in her throat. She drew closer to him, cupped his cheek, and met his gaze. “Silly dragon, the inamorated bond is stronger than that. My soul picked you. It knows you like I know I’m a green drake.”

  He brushed his lips against hers and the purr rumbled in full, vibrating th
rough her chest and throat, resonating through every fiber of her being.

  A hint of sadness crept past her joy. “You’re still going to have to tell me who I am every morning, though.”

  “Hey, that’s not a problem. I get something out of you reading my memories.” His breath feathered warm across her cheek and a flicker of memory, of him confessing to her that her magic calmed consuming memories he couldn’t control, swept through her.

  “Well, so long as you get a little something out of this, too.”

  He drew back and flashed her teeth at her, sending a shiver of desire sliding through her. A flash of them naked in the shower filled her mind’s eye. “It’ll be hard, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to manage.”

  “Ha, I have no doubt it’s hard.” She hooked a finger into the collar of his T-shirt and tugged him forward, capturing his lips with hers and adding a new memory to his collection.

  * * *

  Grey gated into the suite he and Ivy had been given in Nero’s mansion earlier that morning. Mid-afternoon sunlight shone through the windows, warming the comfortable and casually appointed living room, and the warmth spread around his heart. Theirs. This space was theirs. His and Ivy’s. And the people in this house felt more like family than any coterie had in centuries. Raven hadn’t even blinked an eye when Grey and Ivy returned to the mansion — Grey crusted with blood, but thankfully no longer bleeding, and Ivy in Raven’s ruined dress. The black drake had been expecting them and — with Nero’s agreement — got them set up in the suite and even added them to the household duty assignments with the kids and the other dragons.

  Raven then took Ivy clothes shopping — since Ivy couldn’t return to Court for any of her things, not even her hoard — leaving Grey to call Capri and beg her to beg Swipe to use his magic to erase all the blood from the hotel room in Vancouver. She’d agreed on the condition that he buy her an orchid to help replace the hoard she’d lost when her house had burned down a few days ago. He’d buy her a hundred orchids, as well as add to Raven’s and Nero’s and Diablo’s hoards if he thought it could repay the debt he owed them. There wasn’t any way he could thank them enough. He certainly wouldn’t have survived the last forty-eight hours without them.

  Once the call with Capri was done, Grey had taken a quick trip back to Vancouver, then returned to the mansion and changed into clean clothes. He’d then gated to Anaea and Hunter’s house, where Anaea had two soulless bodies on her deck, waiting to receive Jet and Servius’s souls. With Anaea standing by, in the event he needed a sorcerer’s help, Grey drew the coin from his pocket, placed it in the medallion, and activated the magic to rebirth Jet and Servius’s souls. Anaea gated the new hatchlings to a secure location to ensure that their souls’ memories had actually been wiped clean in the rebirth process and neither remembered their previous lives. If that was the case, Nero would accept them in his Major Black Coterie and they’d be given residences in Rome.

  Now Grey was back, ready to spend time with Ivy. His chest still hurt. Hell, most of him still hurt, and hints of memories flickered at the edge of his vision. But none of that mattered. Only Ivy and their future together.

  He checked the bedroom and bathroom. Empty. She either hadn’t returned from shopping with Raven or was somewhere else in the mansion. He opened the door to the hall as the door to the suite across from him also opened.

  Ryan stepped out of his suite and flashed a hint of teeth. “Welcome to the family. Have you been assigned chores yet?”

  “First thing Raven did. How many loads of laundry do you think there’ll be?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  “Gee. Thanks.” Grey pursed his lips. It felt wonderful and weird to have a coterie again… for the first time? He wasn’t sure if he’d ever really belonged to the silver coterie. Still, this was going to take time to get used to. “Do you know if Raven and Ivy are back from shopping?”

  A knowing warmth filled Ryan’s gaze. “I’m told the need to be constantly near her will ease up eventually, but I’m still waiting on that.”

  “You’ve only been inamorated for less than a week.”

  “Yeah, and in dragon speak, eventually could mean a century or two.” Ryan jerked his chin down the hall. “Come on. I could see your lady from my bedroom window. She’s in one of the lawn chairs watching the guys replace the windows in the living room.”

  Grey headed to the end of the hall and down three flights of stairs with Ryan before the human turned to go deeper into the mansion, and Grey went out a side door and marched through the snow around the side of the house to find Ivy. It didn’t matter he only wore slacks and a dress shirt, or that he was getting his shoes wet or that snow was slipping, freezing and damp, around his ankles into his shoes. There was only Ivy.

  He rounded the corner and Ivy’s gaze jumped from the men working on the windows to Grey, as if she’d sensed his arrival. Her face lit up with joy and desire, and she held out a hand, inviting him to join her.

  He met her smile and crouched beside her. “Like what you see?”

  She jerked her chin at the house. “Some of those guys are cute.”

  “Are you trying to make me jealous?” The warmth in his chest swelled. She held a new-found confidence since waking in the hotel room, and while a part of him hoped it was because of how he remembered her, he knew it was all her. This was the powerful green dragon spirit he’d first seen, coiled tight within her delicate and alluring human form. This was the woman he’d do anything for.

  She turned her attention back to him, her dark eyes capturing his soul, and her magic turning everything crisp and clear and perfect. “You know I only have eyes for you.” Her smile turned wicked and desire surged through him. “Of course, that could be because you shared that memory of the shower with me.”

  A purr bubbled in his throat. “I have every intention of breaking in the shower in our suite before the day is done.”

  “I have every intention of taking you up on that.” She walked her fingers along the arm of the lawn chair closer to his hand, clearly an invitation for him to hold it. But there was something he needed to give her first.

  He slid his hand into his pocket, his fingers brushing the small oval object, and drew out her locket.

  She gasped and her joy radiated through her aura in a brilliant flash as she took it. “You found it. You went into a sewer and got it back for me.”

  “You know I’d do anything for you.”

  Her nose crinkled and mischief sparkled in her eyes. “Tell me you’ve cleaned up since crawling around in a sewer.”

  “Read my memories and find out.” He flashed a hint of teeth in invitation.

  She flashed hers back, the look pure desire. “Better yet, let’s go make new memories.”

  Memories he could share with her tomorrow morning.

  A purr slid through him, and he drew her to her feet and pulled her close. Memories that would tell her the moment she woke and said her power word that she was safe and loved.

  That he was safe and loved, too.

  Memories he was glad he’d never be able to forget.

  * * *

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  Don’t miss the next book in the series!

  PURSUING FLIGHT

  A Dragon Spirit Novel: Book Four

  COMING SOON

  OTHER BOOKS BY C.I. BLACK

  THE DRAGON SPIRIT SERIES

  Immortal Coil, Book 1

  Shattered Spirits, Book 2

  Hoarding Secrets, Book 3

  Pursuing Flight, Book 4

  Splintered Souls, Book 5

  Broken Scales, Book 6

  Enduring Essence, Book 7

  THE MEDUSA FILES

  Case 1: Written in Stone

  Case 2: Heart of Stone

  Case 3: Escaped From Stone

>   Case 4: Carved From Stone

  Case 5: Cold as Stone

  Case 6: Broken Stone

  Case 7: Set in Stone

  Case 8: Cut From Stone

  Case 9: Shattered Stone

  Case 10: Shards of Stone

  Case 11: Fallen Stone

  Case 12: Trapped in Stone

  Case 13: Hard as Stone

  GRAVENHILL ROMANTIC SUSPENSES

  Compulsion

  ABOUT C.I. BLACK

  C.I. Black has always lived in a world of imagination. When she’s not daydreaming, she puts her flights of fancy down on paper writing urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense books.

  She’s the author of the Dragon Spirit series and the Medusa Files series. You can find a complete list of C.I.’s books at www.ciblack.com.