“I suppose,” Carrie admitted. “I've gone a few times when I’m not surfing.”
“Consider Edvard a telephone pole with a broken line. Get your gear on and climb that pole before someone else does.” Ella raised her wineglass and winked.
“More like Paul Bunyan with an axe,” Jillian said. “Don’t let anyone else chop the wood for him. Get in there and give it the old college try. This is the twenty-first century. And mating bonds don’t exist in the human world. So who gives a shit? Get in there and get you some.”
“Dear God,” Carrie whispered, half-laughing, half-horrified. “I have terrible friends.”
“We have children and don’t drink nearly enough wine,” Ella said. “If we keep going the way we’re going, we’re going to all end up with eighteen children because listen, those four dragons are prime beef and we grew up poor. Slap a condom on that thing and ride it like he’s a mechanical bull.”
“You are all cut off,” Carrie murmured.
Her face burned with embarrassment. Similar thoughts had been rolling around in her mind for months. But sex took trust, at least with her it did. Edvard was the most gentle and kindest man she’d ever known, so if she did do the horizontal limbo, she could do a lot worse than him.
Who’s to say he’s even thought about me that way? All he has to do is walk down to the beach on any given day and there'd be a harem of gorgeous women in phenomenal shape splashing in the ocean. He wouldn’t have a bit of trouble scooping one of those honeys up.
She tugged on her ear and chewed her lip as she thought about it. Jealousy, an emotion she wasn’t used to, heated up her veins. She didn’t want Edvard to look at anyone else, much less mess around with them. But it wasn’t fair of her to try to prevent him from doing so, unless she was ready to take that next step.
Ella reached over and nudged her. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? All those wonderful things Edvard could do to you.”
Sara snorted with laughter. “Ain’t no fling like a dragon fling!” she said.
Carrie groaned. “You’re cut off, Sara. That was terrible.”
All the girls laughed. “She’s right,” Jillian said.
Just as Carrie was reaching for another graham cracker, the sound of alarms triggered through the small house. They all reached for their cell phones.
Ella was the first to decipher the message coming through. “Shit!” She scrambled to her feet. “Get up! It’s a tsunami alert.”
Instantly the girls were all on their feet, their eyes wide. “All the trees will slow it down some and we’re far enough to have a small head start if the waters rise high enough. It depends on how bad it is.” Carrie peered down at her cell. “It doesn’t have enough detail for us to know.” Carrie had wanted a place close enough to walk to the beach, but far enough to be away from the hustle and bustle of the town. She’d gotten both with her tree house. Shelter and surfing. Minus the occasional tsunami alert, it was perfect.
Sara's phone rang right away. She snatched it up and pressed it to her ear. Within seconds, her demeanor had changed and was the calm, cool person they knew. She murmured something and hung up.
“Daegal says there's no danger to humans.”
He would know. All of them would know.
“He wants us to walk down to the beach when we finish here.” Sara stared longingly down at the fondue and sighed. “Personally, I’d like to just sit here for the next two days and stuff myself on melty cheese, but I think Daegal was being polite. He wants us there right now.” Her eyes met Carrie’s. “But cheese,” she said and pointed to all the leftover fondue.
“Girl, grab a Tupperware bowl and a lid, a bag of chips, and let’s blow this joint.” Ella pointed to the kitchen. “When cheese is involved, you have to improvise.”
Sara rushed into the kitchen. The sounds of dishes clanking around made Carrie yell, “Bottom right”
A few moments later, Sara came back with a bag of tortilla chips and the Tupperware. “Who actually has matching lids to their bowls?” she asked, dumbfounded.
“Things have to match in this house,” Carrie admitted. “If they don’t, the bowl gets tossed, too.”
Jillian gasped. “Tupperware sacrilege!”
Carrie rolled her eyes. “Scoop and let’s go, ladies.” She slid her flip-flops on and waited for the other girls before she opened up the door and stepped out. The beach was close enough that they didn’t have to drive, but a few seconds in, Sara was bitching about how dark it was.
“You need motion lights out here, Carrie, seriously,” she said. Seconds later, she stumbled over some brush.
“Edvard is looking into a system for me. I’ll mention it to him. Those would be pretty handy if I needed to go out at night.” Carrie had lived here long enough to be mostly familiar with the terrain, so she took the lead.
The girls followed right behind her and soon enough they were crossing down to the beach below them. The moon was high in the sky still and illuminated all four of the dragons as they stood gazing out at the sea. Gregor, unsurprisingly, wore the most solemn expression. Sebastian looked pissed off.
Daegal’s expression was carefully blank until he saw Sara. It morphed into one of relief. He pulled her in for a hug and kept his arm across her shoulder.
Gregor tugged Ella’s hand until she moved closer. Sebastian jerked his head which made Jillian laugh and shoot him the bird. She moved closer to him, anyway.
Carrie’s stomach lurched. They all had such natural, easy chemistry. Feeling like a third wheel was never fun. Edvard’s eyes settled on her. He offered a sweet smile.
Carrie returned it and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when something occurred to her. “The kids. Where are they?”
Sebastian sniggered. “They’re at the bar having a pint while their parents save the world.”
Jillian punched him in the arm. “Ass.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Daegal texted us before we left. They’re with a sitter, on higher ground. Just in case.”
“Are we done, children?” Daegal asked, his tone dry. When everyone fell silent, he spoke again. “There is no reason for a tsunami," Daegal began. “This is no natural phenomenon. We should spread out and search for signs of other dragons. They’re the only ones who could cause something like this outside of an earthquake or underwater landslide.”
Gregor looked down at Ella. “Has there been any news about anything like that we might have missed? Even a minor quake?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I have alerts set up on my phone to monitor things like that.”
Of course Carrie’s nerdy friend did. Not much got past Ella, and she was unbeatable at trivia. If there had been anything with weird weather-related phenomena, she would be the one to know about it.
“You think it's Ludovic?” Carrie asked. There hadn’t been any real signs of him for quite a while.
Sebastian began to wander off from the group. Carrie saw him from her peripheral, but didn’t give it much thought.
Seconds later, a shout got their attention. The other dragon crouched on the beach, staring intently at something. He touched the sand, rubbed it in his fingers and held it to his nose.
“Kalika,” he said. His voice was strained. “She’s been here.” He looked Jillian’s way. Their journey to love was not without some intense drama – namely in the form of an ex-dragon lover. The one whose scent he just found on the beach.
To her credit, Jillian had no real reaction other than a slight flaring of her nostrils. They were all growing up and maturing into their best selves.
“This doesn't mean he’s back,” Edvard said. He moved closer to Carrie, heat radiating from his body. She shivered and wanted to get a little closer to him, but with the thoughts she’d been having about him, the gesture would no longer be as innocent as it once was.
Gregor stepped away from them and waded into the surf. She watched powerful muscles play in his back as he stretched his arms wide and threw his head back. A trickl
e of magic formed around his body and sank into the water. It zoomed through the surf and coalesced a few hundred feet away into a ball of glowing light.
“Ludovic,” Daegal spat.
“Aye,” Edvard said. “Fuck.” There were a thousand emotions in that single word. “He’s not dead then.” Edvard shook his head. “Pity.”
“It just gives us another chance to inflict maximum damage,” Daegal said.
“How the fuck does someone survive getting a building dropped on them?” Sebastian growled from his spot on the ground.
“That bastard is like a cat,” Sara said. She and Ella had the most reasons to hate Ludovic. He’d kidnapped Keanu to use as leverage, then kidnapped Ella to force the other dragons out of hiding, only it backfired on him spectacularly. He’d found himself quite taken with the bookworm only to end up with one eye for his trouble. When he’d gotten too close to her with nefarious intentions, Ella stabbed him right in the eye with an antique letter opener.
Later on, Jillian remarked she wished Ella would have stabbed him right in the dick, but the eye would do. It would hinder him in battle. Jillian was a little more bloodthirsty than them in certain ways and she tended to think about the future more. She figured if Ludovic couldn’t breed, then they’d never have to worry about future little evil dragons running around. In her words, “even pirates have sex” which made them all laugh, but sobered them too.
In a horrible way, she was right. They hoped he didn’t have children growing up with an agenda. Sara mentioned he was too ugly for someone to have sex with. None of them really agreed with that because all the damn dragons were sex popsicles, but Ludovic was pretty evil, so hopefully he hadn’t knocked anyone up in his time in Hawaii.
When Sara told Daegal what they’d discussed later, he laughed himself silly and said they would be able to sense other Dragonkin that young, even with cloaking. Young dragons could not defend themselves and had no way to hide from others, so they weren’t worried about it.
Still, Carrie thought, maybe Ella should have tried to chop off his dick with the letter opener just so we could all sleep easier.
Even better if they finally managed to take him down.
“He survived because the gods willed it,” Gregor said.
Edvard exhaled a breath of air. In the time they’d been together, Carrie realized Edvard did not put nearly as much stock in fate and the gods as Gregor did. It hadn’t been a point of contention between them, but Edvard never subscribed to the theory that Ludovic was here because of some greater design.
“The bastard is just lucky, that’s all,” Edvard said. “Can you trace his trail?” he asked Gregor.
“Some, maybe. I can smell his blood in the ocean. He came back here to heal. Right under our noses this entire time.”
Edvard turned to look at Carrie. “You are the only unmated female here. Ludovic knows we care about you. You should move back into Sara’s home until we find him.”
Carrie blinked at him. “Uh, no. That isn’t going to happen.”
Edvard’s eyebrows drew together. Being told “no” must have been a new one for him. “You will.”
“The hell I will!” Carrie said. She stood to her full height, but she still had to tilt her head up to look Edvard in the eye. “My home is in the forest. I plan to go back there.”
“That’s a mistake. You are a female by yourself, living in a place where there’s too much cover. If something happened to you, we wouldn’t know it until it was too late. I must insist.”
Carrie folded her arms over her chest. “Insist all you want. It isn’t happening.”
The other dragons stared at her as she argued with Edvard. The weight of their stares was heavy against her skin.
Sara stepped forward. “It’s alright if you want to stay-” Sara began.
Carrie’s eyes blazed as she turned to her friend. “I’m not staying,” she said. Her jaw clenched.
Edvard and her faced off like they were in the ring. It was always hard to tell if he was angry because of his constantly amused expression. Tonight, though? Tonight Edvard was pissed. His massive arms were crossed and his cheek muscles had a steady tic. His eyes blazed with anger, but a few seconds later, that fury drained away and his expression became carefully blank.
“Fine,” he said.
Carrie had just opened her mouth to rebut whatever he’d been about to say but closed it. “Fine?” she echoed.
He nodded. “Fine.”
Edvard turned and walked away from her.
It took her a few seconds before she looked away from his broad back.
“What the fuck was that?” Ella whispered.
“Trickery,” Carrie mumbled. “This feels like reverse psychology.”
“Is he that smart?” Ella wondered aloud.
Carrie snorted with amusement. “All of these dragons are wily. I’m not sure what Edvard has planned, but it’s something. I know him.” She scratched her head. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to regret this?”
Ella grinned at her. “We aren’t!”
Carrie shoved her playfully. “I moved out so I could have my own space and to give Sara her house back. I want to be on my own. It’s been too long.”
“We all know how dangerous Ludovic is,” Ella admitted. “He just wants to make sure you’re safe.”
“He doesn’t have to be so damned bossy,” Carrie muttered. “It’s annoying.”
Ella gave her a knowing look. “But kind of hot, right?”
So. Hot. But Carrie wasn’t going to say that aloud. “No. It’s sexist.”
“Hmmm,” Ella murmured. “Still hot.” She shrugged and gave Carrie a quick hug. “I need to call it a night. The baby is going to get up super early and I need to work off some of this wine.” She eyeballed Gregor up and down and Carrie knew exactly how she was planning to work off the booze.
“Ugh. Go. Please,” Carrie said.
Ella wiggled her eyebrows and skipped over to her husband. Carrie sighed and started making the trek back to her house alone.
* * *
Carrie was a little more careful that evening to ensure everything was locked up and secured. She knew what Ludovic was capable of, but she didn’t think there was much to worry about. There was no mating bond. Why in the world would he want her? When Ella was kidnapped, the bond between her and Gregor was firmly in place.
Just to be safe, though, she slept with the Taser she’d bought from a seedy character downtown next to her pillow. She rarely got it out because it frightened her more than made her feel safe, but at least she’d have one thing in between her and the dragon if he came for her.
She’d just put her pajamas on when a noise from outside startled her. She rushed out of her room and gently pulled open the curtains just enough to let her see outside.
The sight that greeted her made her blood boil. Edvard stood outside, his hands on his hips and a backpack and tent sitting on the ground beside him.
“What the actual fuck?” Carrie whispered to herself. She looked down at herself, decided she was decent enough and unlocked the front door to confront him.
When Edvard saw her standing on the small porch, he held up a hand in greeting. He said nothing, but he wore a little smirk that pissed her off even more. She stomped down the stairs, wincing as the hard, knobby wood hurt her feet. “What the hell are you doing, Edvard?” she demanded as she rushed down to greet him.
“I am pitching a tent,” he said proudly.
She decided not to point out that he was holding instructions in his hand, so technically he wasn’t going to be pitching anything for a while until he figured it out. Carrie was not going to help him be a sexist pig but was looking forward to watching him fuck it up.
“Uh huh. And why here?” Her chest heaved with anger and there was a thin film of rage covering her eyes as she stared up at him. It didn’t help that he was handsome as sin. That just pissed her off even more.
“Because you are not there.” He pointed in Sara'
s general direction.
“So you think trespassing is the way to win me over?”
“I do not care to win you over, Carrie. I care about your safety. If I am here, you are safe. If you are there, you are safe. Either way, I win.”
This fucking dragon. “And if I tell you to leave?”
He shook his head, looking like he didn't have a care in the world. “You will have to move me yourself. Though you may be strong, I can assure you, I am stronger.”
Carrie's teeth gnashed. “Of all the fucking-” She stopped, shut her eyes and counted to five. “Edvard, I am not a child.”
“I can assure you, I know this.”
She changed tactics. “Have you ever read Shakespeare?”
His brows knit together. “I do not know this Shake Spear.”
“Though she be but little she is fierce. It's from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Do you know what it means?”
He shrugged. “It sounds like a small person with a big personality?”
She huffed a laugh but stifled it because she was supposed to be mad. “Yes. That’s partly what it means. But mostly it means that if you do this, I’m going to find a way to kick your ass that probably won't be physical.”
He gave her a dubious stare. “Is there a way to..." the bastard made actual finger quotes, “‘kick my ass’ without using physical force?”
She was going to murder him and bury the body so far underground none of the other dragons would ever be able to find him.
“You have fire in your eyes,” he murmured. “I like this side of you.” He loomed over her and Carrie just noticed how close they were together. She wore nothing but a tank top and a pair of shorts, and her breasts strained against the fabric. Carrie longed to reach out and touch him. She wanted to stroke the hair away from his face and run her fingers down the strong edges of his jaw.
Their gazes caught and held. “I’m so pissed at you,” she said, her voice much softer now.
“I’m glad of it,” Edvard murmured. “If you are angry, then you are alive.” He took a step closer to her and touched a lock of her hair. “I’ve never seen hair so pale before,” he murmured. “It glows silver in the moonlight.” His attention moved to her lips. “You look like a fae in the storybooks, come to steal me away from my family.”
The Alpha Dragon's Protection (Dragon Shifters 0f Kahului Book 4) Page 5