Dragons Need Love, Too (I Like Big Dragons Series Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  By the time he was done, I was clenching my fists so freakin’ hard that I didn’t have any feeling in them.

  Whirling around, I glared at Keifer.

  Easy with what you say, Angus whispered through my mind. Control your anger. State your case. Tell him what you feel, but don’t make him feel stupid.

  I was beyond ‘rational’ however.

  I was into the ‘irrational’ state now.

  “Keifer, do you know what it’s like to be imprisoned?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed, and I couldn’t be sure if it was due to the setting sun or the fact that he didn’t like my tone.

  “No,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “And do you know what it’s like to be told what to do and when to do it?” I persisted.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been king and a prince my whole life,” he admitted. “It definitely isn’t something that I’ve experienced.”

  I nodded again.

  “What about the basic amenities. Have you ever had to deal with power outage?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The sanctuary has backup generators, and we have for a very long time now. Why?”

  I ignored his question.

  “When I was four years old, I got my first job. It was beating the rugs out at my parents’ place. There was a line of them that stretched over thirty feet long. I did it for five hours a day after I did my schooling,” I told him.

  He cocked his head.

  And it was then I realized that Nikolai was there, too.

  I knew he wouldn’t let Keifer yell at me.

  He’d let him explain what he felt he had to, but he wouldn’t ever let Keifer hurt me. My feelings were a different thing, and I hated that Nikolai was siding with Keifer on this.

  He’d held back some, staring at what was going on.

  I turned back to Keifer.

  “When I was eight, I graduated from the rugs and moved to the kitchens, where I cooked the morning, noon and evening meals, as well as baked the next day’s bread for over a hundred other people,” I explained. “I was one of about four girls that were in my age group in our Amish community. So, for sixteen years, I followed order after order, and worked my ass off all because I was a girl. And I left because I was told to leave. But I didn’t go back, do you know why?”

  I crossed my arms, glaring at the man that was now my ‘King.’ Even though I’d never sworn any fealty to him.

  “I did a woman’s work. I did what I was told. I went where I was instructed. I read what I was given. I was a fucking slave,” I hissed. “And now, here I am, a fucking slave again. I go to sleep when I’m supposed to, since the lights are turned out at a certain time because I share a fucking house with fifteen other people. I work where I’m told, because I’m needed. I don’t leave because I’m told I can’t. I haven’t been able to order a single fucking thing off of the Internet because of some blackout to my account due to somebody out there looking for a way in at me. I’m being paid by my mate for services rendered because whomever is supposed to pay me doesn’t. And to top it all off, I am now mated to a man that takes the side of his brother rather than his mate.”

  I was good and pissed now.

  In fact, I wanted to throw something at both of their faces.

  My shoe, perhaps, since when I looked around that was the only thing I could see that would make an impact.

  I didn’t, however.

  Instead, I pulled what little courage I had left, and volleyed one final blow at not Keifer, but at my husband.

  “I left that place because I knew they were going to marry me off to a man. A man that’d already told me he would brook no disrespect to his family or mine. I was to obey him. No matter what. And so I left, because that’s not how I wanted to live my life,” I snarled. “And look where I am...being dictated what I can and can’t do. By you. By him. And who’s watching out for me? No one, that’s who. Because even my own fucking best friend takes the other side.”

  With that, I gathered the darkness around me, something that I’d learned from Perdita, and I disappeared.

  Well, seemed to disappear.

  Really, I just sat on the picnic table.

  “Shit,” Nikolai hissed. “Shit.”

  Shit was right.

  ***

  Nikolai

  “She’s right,” I said to my brother once we were back inside.

  “Just give her time to cool off. She’ll see the error of her ways,” Keifer muttered dismissively.

  I didn’t think she would.

  In fact, I thought that this was worse than ever.

  Usually she was a pleasant buzz in my brain…a hum of awareness.

  Now…nothing.

  She’d disappeared into the shadows…a trick that I’d shown her because she’d asked.

  Now I was staring at where she’d been with worry.

  Perdita, where is she? I asked.

  If anyone could find her, it would be Perdita.

  Although she couldn’t always see through my veils, she always had a hint of where I was.

  I don’t see her within two hundred feet of where I am. Why? Perdita answered quickly, sounding distracted.

  She was mad at me and disappeared into the shadows, I answered.

  I’ll keep an eye out for her, but she can’t get off the property without me knowing, and if she needs time, let her have it. You’re suffocating her.

  Words that Brooklyn had practically spat at me moments before.

  Wonderful.

  I kicked the dust at my feet, annoyed that I’d done exactly what she’d accused me of.

  I’d taken my brother’s back out of habit.

  We’d been together for a very long time, and we’d promised to always have each other’s backs.

  However, here I was, taking his back over my mate’s and I’d seriously pissed her off.

  I watched the darkness for the next two hours.

  And I wasn’t really, truly, worried until the first hint of dawn started rising over the trees in the back yard.

  That’s about when my heart started to speed up.

  Perdita, I need you to find her now, I ordered.

  Perdita took a few seconds too long to answer me, and I screamed at her in my head.

  Perdita, I need you to find her! I bellowed.

  I don’t know why I was all worried about it now.

  I’d been standing here for two hours without any hint of worry.

  Then all of a sudden it was just there.

  And it took me a few long moments to realize why.

  Because I was feeling her panic.

  Brooklyn! I cried, hoping she’d answer.

  She didn’t.

  So I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to use that same thread I’d used weeks ago when I’d channeled her in the hospital basement.

  And I found her…but I couldn’t see anything.

  “Where are you?” I whispered aloud.

  The blackness shifted, and I saw what looked like brake lights…from the inside, not the outside.

  “Shit,” I hissed. “Shit!”

  I was too scared to break off from her, so I mentally shouted for Perdita to relay the information I’d just discovered to Keifer.

  And I prayed.

  Because, this time, I wasn’t sure that everything was going to work out quite like I wanted it to.

  Chapter 16

  I love you more than you deserve. Fucker.

  -Brooklyn’s secret thoughts

  Brooklyn

  My body hit the floor with a solid thud, and I jolted in pain.

  My elbow hit the concrete with a loud smack, and I knew instantly that it was broken.

  White hot pain rolled through my vision as I rolled over and vomited as the pain washed over me.

  “Tie her up,” a familiar voice ordered.

  A familiar voice that I hadn’t heard in a very
long time.

  I forced myself to open my eyes and stared at my brother, Charles.

  “No,” I croaked.

  My brother smiled, showing his crooked teeth that glowed yellow due to not taking care of them.

  The last time I’d seen him he’d had a beard that reached down to his nipples.

  Now it was shorter and came to just about shoulder level; however, everything else about him was the same.

  He hadn’t changed at all in the years since I’d last seen him.

  “Surprised to see me?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  I was surprised.

  “Get her tied up!” he snapped again, and it was then that I saw the men in the room around me.

  And the other tables.

  And the cage.

  Shit.

  There was a dragon in the cage.

  A beautiful brown and white one that resembled more bronze, rather than brown, the longer I stared at it.

  That must be Merrick’s dragon.

  Speaking of Merrick, I looked over to the wall where I’d heard a body hit the ground shortly after us getting into the room that we were in, and saw him lying on the ground, blood seeping out of his ears, nose, and mouth.

  My heart hurt.

  Not because he’d attacked me, but because I could clearly see that he’d had no choice.

  He literally couldn’t not do it, and it’d cost him.

  Big time.

  He was dying.

  I could tell.

  And I knew he’d brought me here under protest.

  The blood where he’d fought the pull proved it.

  He’d slipped me a note that I’d read by the brake light glow, and I’d clearly seen the letters he’d quickly scribbled onto an old receipt from a supply order.

  He’d said only a few short words.

  There’d been another geis that I hadn’t realized was there…nor had Ian.

  One that was sort of a ticking time bomb.

  If I wasn’t brought to the compound where the man said to bring me, who I now knew was Charles, then he’d kill him. After he killed Merrick’s sister.

  And then he’d practically forced him to do it by taking complete control of his body, which I knew couldn’t be done by anyone other than another dragon rider.

  And Merrick had fought it.

  He’d fought it so hard that even his eyes were bleeding from his attempt not to deliver me to my brother.

  He’d been willing to let his sister and dragon die to make sure that I lived, but in the end he hadn’t been strong enough.

  I wasn’t sure anyone could be. Not against that kind of power.

  My eyes went to the other two tables where a man and a woman lay.

  The man only had eyes for the woman, and the woman looked at her brother with a broken heart.

  I could guess what was going on here.

  The man on the table was probably the other dragon rider that’d forced Merrick to do his bidding, and the girl was probably Merrick’s sister.

  An impossible task if I did say so myself.

  The man had wanted his mate to live. The woman had wanted her brother to live. The brother had wanted what was best for everyone.

  Look around, my mate instructed me.

  I couldn’t though, because in the next instant I was yanked up by my arms, and my elbow screeched in protest.

  I could practically hear the bones of my arm grinding together at the move.

  I’d almost managed to block the pain out due to some weird healing power that I knew I got from Nikolai.

  Now, though, it was as if it’d happened all over again.

  Any healing that’d been done to it while I was lying on the cool concrete, was abruptly halted by my rough treatment.

  I screamed as white hot lighting shot up my spine, and vomit surged up my throat.

  I emptied the contents of my stomach onto the man at my side, coating him from chest to shoes and everywhere in between.

  I was dropped once again, and I took the moment to open my eyes and look around, pushing the pain brutally away with sheer force of will.

  Force of will that I’d borrowed from Nikolai in a desperate move to not only save myself, but the others in the room with me who also didn’t have a choice.

  Easy, Nikolai’s ripple through my mind said, making me calm slightly. I’ve got you.

  I took everything in through a pain filled haze.

  The room, or should I say cabin, we were in, was a one-bedroom open styled floor plan. One side of the large room was the kitchen, where we were currently located. The other side housed a bed and wardrobe, as well as a bathroom behind a curtain.

  The single window that led to the outside showed nothing special.

  An old curtain hung partially over the old glass. Trees were beyond the glass, lining the entire view.

  Then I continued to survey, even when I was picked up once again.

  This time by a different set of men, not including the man I’d puked on.

  My eyes finally went to the lone door, and I was glad to see that it had glass, allowing me to see out.

  And as they moved me closer to the front door where the hospital bed lay, I got a good look outside the window.

  Excitement coursed through my veins as I saw the water tower.

  To most it wouldn’t be that significant.

  However, this one had a huge ‘Dallas’ painted on the side in red, white, and blue lettering.

  It’d been special to the city having been donated by an old war vet that’d left all his money that he’d been able to save in his lifetime to the area of Dallas where he’d grown up.

  He’d requested that the money that he’d donated be put to good use on something that would benefit the entire community.

  And since they had needed the water tower, they’d bought it.

  Then had declared it, ‘Teddy Reed’s water tower.’

  Got it, Nikolai said. I need to talk to Keifer and the boys. But I’ll be back.

  Then, just as suddenly, I was once again alone in my head and able to concentrate on my immediate surroundings again.

  I’d deliberately ignored the table at my side, but now I finally gave in to my sick curiosity and looked down at the instruments on the smooth surface.

  “I wasn’t going to torture you, since you’re my sister after all,” my brother said. “But you’ve pissed me off today by not following directions. So now you’ll do what I tell you to do, and like it. Do you understand, sis?”

  I wanted to slap him, but the special part of me that hadn’t known I’d existed, i.e. control, stayed with me long enough for me to take whatever medication that he’d just given me.

  I wasn’t picky about what they’d given me.

  Nikolai and I had had a long discussion on what would happen to my body now that I had special healing capabilities.

  Anything, such as Motrin or Tylenol would likely affect me for only a short period of time.

  Nikolai’s sister was working on a way to lengthen the effectiveness of the drugs, because when someone got hurt and needed to be sedated, whomever was having the procedure done on them, repeatedly got knocked out by physical means because they couldn’t make them stay still any other way.

  “Are you even fucking listening to anything I am saying?” my brother snarled, pulling my hair back so hard that a fistful of hair was in his hand as he shook his fist in my face to show me.

  I shouldn’t have done what I did.

  I should’ve stayed calm.

  I should’ve let Nikolai do what he needed to do.

  But I didn’t.

  I reared back with my legs, then sent both straight into his chest.

  It hit his breast bone with a crack, and I very clearly made out the sound of ribs breaking.

  I was thankful for my boots that I’d worn.

  I’d intended to go for a small walk around the lak
e, and due to the rain we’d had the previous night, I’d prepared for the possibility of mud.

  I’d worn them out of deference to my mate, who continually said I needed to be more careful about the mud. That a good pair of boots would likely save me from a snake bite if it ever came down to it.

  I’d worn them, even though they were incredibly uncomfortable.

  They proved to come in handy now, though.

  Almost out of reflex, I closed my eyes and started concentrating.

  My head started to pound as my body became more aware of the pain I was in.

  However, my attempt to use my veil had worked, and I disappeared from sight only moments later.

  Rolling to my feet, I gritted my teeth against the pain in my arm and moved to the door, freezing when a man stopped in front of it, blocking my exit.

  “She’s around here somewhere,” the man said. “You need to get up off your ass and find her.”

  That was directed towards my brother. Stupid asshole.

  I was happy to see him still writhing in pain on the ground, almost gleeful, in fact.

  “Seriously?” the man asked. “What do I pay you for?”

  Charles grimaced in pain and lifted his knees up under his torso before pushing up to his haunches.

  “Kill her,” he said gravely. “Fucking kill her. She’s ruined my life; she doesn’t deserve to live.”

  How in the hell had I ruined his life?

  I took a step backward and stepped wrong, bumping the small table at my side.

  My hand automatically went out to stop the lamp from falling, but it was the one that had been broken upon my arrival, meaning I screamed.

  Letting the lamp drop to the ground, I limped, slightly hunched over, to the side of the room, directly behind where my brother had managed to get to his feet, albeit pitifully.

  My brother looked around the room frantically, almost as if he was waiting for me to beam him over the head any second.

  And technically I would have…if I had something to use.

  I wasn’t sure I could lift anything at this moment in time.

  Instead, I sank down to my butt, letting my back slide against the wall until my backside met the cool tiled floor.