Waking the Dragon (17 page)

His voice was low and gruff, but no dragon lurked there. He sounded strangely calm compared to the voice I heard between unconsciousness and awake. The voice who had refused to let anyone take me but him.

A smooth gray stone arced upward to a dome-like ceiling. Somewhere, I heard water. Rain? Couldn’t be. The first snow had fallen in a torrent. Rain was months away now. My head must be still fuzzy from whacking against that wall. I remembered Borgus, Drom, the cavern.

“Kol. What happened?”

“The operation failed.” He continued to suture the gash in my upper arm.

“I was so close. We almost—”

He stopped stitching. His frown deepened over a narrow gaze. “We
won’t
be making a third attempt. So don’t even think about asking.”

I said nothing, feeling mollified. He went back to work on my arm. I couldn’t admit what a coward I’d become at the last second. How I wanted to back out, to call for help right before Drom and his oafish friends came barreling in, thus ending our grand plan. There was irony for you. The jerk I couldn’t stand had saved me from going through what I knew now was a definite mistake. There was something else at the edge of my mind, trying to snake its way in. I pushed it back, watching Kol. His hands were so large—broad, long-fingered, yet gentle and deft at stitching.

“Did we get Borgus?”

Somehow, I knew the answer before he gave it to me.

“No. He slipped out while we took care of that asshole and his asshole friends. If Borgus’s men were there, they were well-hidden and long gone by the time we’d dealt with the others.” The asshole, no doubt, being Drom.

A white-waxed candle burned low on a side-table. From this angle, his scar stood out in stark relief, an angry line marking this Morgon man, making him more severe, more cold, more distant. Whether from being half-stupid from the knockout or just plain insane, I touched two fingers to the top of his scar. He froze.

“Did this hurt?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

I trailed my fingers feather-light down the reddened scar past his lips to where it stopped beneath. “Does it still hurt?”

Swift and sudden, he gripped my wrist in an iron hold, pinning me with simmering rage. “Don’t.” He gave me one shake of the head. A warning.

He angled his head lower and snapped the thread’s end with his teeth. He was up and moving away before it dawned on me how stupid I was. What in the world had possessed me to do that? I must’ve hit my head pretty damn hard.

I curled onto my side, feeling constricted by my tight corset and painted-on pants. Uncomfortably so. I stared at the candle, watching the wax roll into pools in its cast-iron holder, wafting a soft honey-flower aroma into the air.

He returned with something in his hand. “Here. You might be more comfortable sleeping in this.”

It was a long-sleeved black shirt made of a divine material—thick and petal-soft. It was also three or four sizes too big.

“Can you change on your own, or do you need my help?” The devil was back in his eyes. The tips of his wide mouth tilted up.

“No. I can manage.” I pushed off the bed with my injured shoulder, winced, and buckled at the elbow. He caught me around the ribs and helped me into a sitting position, my legs hanging off his bed. Literally hanging, for I couldn’t reach the floor.

“I’m fine!” I snapped.

He crossed his arms and stood there, blocking my way.

“Really. I was just a little dizzy. I’ve got it.”

“You banged your head hard, but the worst injury is in your shoulder.”

I touched the wound lightly, remembering how Drom shoved me. Yes. I had hit my head and scraped my bare shoulder on the jagged wall on my way down to the stone floor. The wound was clean, the stitches tight. I met the glaring Morgon’s gaze. “What?”

“A simple
thank you
would suffice.”

I opened my mouth to give him a sassy come-back, then snapped it shut. “Thank you,” I muttered, examining the wound.

“It will heal quickly and leave a little mark. It’s a surface cut, but will sting for a while.”

I met his stern gaze.

“Change. Stay put,” he snapped. “I’ll have something for your head shortly.”

He exited the room, the door nothing more than a stone archway carved into the wall. A very large one in order to fit his massive body and wings. Was his house in a cave? If so, then it wasn’t deep underground. A fireplace stood on the far wall, the smoke filtering up somewhere to the open air through the stone chimney. From here, I could see large river rocks carefully embedded into the chimney up to the point where the roof sloped into a dome.

I unlaced the corset in the front, feeling instant relief when I removed it. There were indentions in my skin where it had supported me under my breasts and squeezed my ribcage. After peeling off my pants on top of the bed, I pulled on the shirt Kol had given me, luxuriating in the softness against my skin, raw from being bound so long.

Other than a low-backed chair next to the fire and the bed on which I sat, there was no furniture. As would be expected, the bed was massive—three times the size of my own in my little apartment. There were no posts or headboard, but there was a unique design carved directly into the slate-gray stone wall where a headboard would be. Swirls of vines crossed and interlaced into a pointed arch, meeting the edge of the roof where the dome began. I touched the carven image, running my fingers along the surface of a thorny rose. It reminded me of Kris’s headboard at her parents’ home.

“Kris!”

I jumped off the bed and took a few quick steps toward the doorway, unsure where I was going or what I planned to do. White spots filled my vision as the blood rushed to my head. I stumbled and fell on all fours.

Before I could even see straight, I was lifted by a cursing Kol.

“Damn it, woman. Can you not be so stubborn for once?”

His words were rough, his tone gentle—an intoxicating contradiction—much like the man himself. Instead of putting me back in his bed, he carried me into the next room and placed me in a chair before another fireplace, careful not to aggravate my wound. I waited while the world righted, then peered around. Kol poured something from a kettle on the stove along a wall farther off. This room was similar to the bedroom—a wide, open space encompassing the kitchen and living area with little furniture.

“Kris. Please tell me someone made sure she got home safely.”

He crossed the room and placed a round, warm mug in my hands. “Of course. Kraven took her home.”

I sighed with relief, thankful my friend made it out safely. “He told her you were feeling sick and left early.”

“She wouldn’t accept that. It’s not like me to just disappear.”

He leaned one arm on the mantel, made of dark wood, jutting out from a river-rock chimney like the one in his bedroom. “She protested at first, but Kraven can be very persuasive.”

I remembered the way he looked at her. “I’m sure.”

“Drink up.”

I peered into the cup and smelled a soothing aroma. “What is it?”

“It’s a Petrus concoction. Your headache will be gone as soon as you finish.”

I sipped, expecting a bland medicinal broth. It was pleasantly herbed and tasty.

Kol stared into the yellow flames. I studied him over the rim of the mug, the throbbing in my head fading as he had promised.

This man. This man—hidden behind an icy wall, behind a façade to keep the world at bay—no longer aggravated or annoyed me. He intrigued me, lured me. Rather than let Lorian take me to a hospital, he insisted on taking care of me himself. Why? I wanted answers. I wanted to know more of the man behind the frozen exterior.

“So why did you bring me here? Why not Lorian’s?”

Still staring into the fire, he didn’t answer. I’m not sure he heard me at all. There was a rushing noise close by, other than the hissing flames.

“That can’t be rain. Unless you live south of Gladium. But you work mostly in Drakos for the Morgon Guard, so that can’t be.”

He took the mug from my hand and set it aside, holding out his arm. “Come. I’ll show you.”

Curling my fingers around his forearm, I let him lead me just in case I decided to have another dizzy spell and fall on my face again in humiliation. I hadn’t noticed the opening in the wall to the left of the hearth. The hall was dark, but pale light shone up ahead. As we drew closer to another archway, the rushing water grew louder, the cold more intense. Stepping out of the opening, I was instantly hit with a fine, misty spray and icy wind. I sucked in a quick breath. We stood on a ledge twelve feet deep and thirty feet wide where nothing but a cascade of water curtained the aperture. By the faint light on the other side, I could tell the moon was still up.

“A waterfall!” The rushing-water noise drowned out my voice. “You live behind a waterfall?”

“Good camouflage.” He didn’t have to yell. His deep tenor reached me easily.

Peering up at him, the rushing water reflected a soft pattern on his face. The harsh planes seemed gentler. His eyes roved down to my bare legs, which trembled from the draft, his shirt stopping at my knees. Glittering pools of silver met my gaze. My breath hitched. As if caught in a vise, I couldn’t look away. He didn’t pretend nonchalance as he drank me in—my hair, cheeks, lips, eyes. Rather, he revealed open hunger—the look of a man who knew what he wanted, who was used to getting what he wanted, who would demand my submission if it so pleased him. And the sad part? I knew I’d submit. In less than a heartbeat. Not of my own volition. It was like my body was ensnared by a mystical web, resonating with his on an undeniable level. I couldn’t figure it out. Did the marking give him some control over me?

He lifted a hand, then brushed his fingertips across my cheek, sliding down my jaw to my parted lips, grazing with unimaginable softness for such a man. Pulse pounding in my throat at the thought of being helpless beneath him like before, I let go of his arm. He dropped his hand and blinked slowly, breaking the spell.

“You need to sleep,” was his command. Before I could take a step, he swept me in his arms and carried me back into his house.

“I can walk. I’m not an invalid.”

He grunted, holding me tighter. I blew out a frustrated breath. But the truth was, this felt good. The woodsy, wintry smell of him filled my senses, drawing me in, wrapping me in sensual unrest. Why? Because he’d marked me with his scent? Was I now hooked on him like a drug addict needed a fix? I closed my eyes, willing the sudden arousal washing over me to be gone. No such luck.

He set me on his bed and pulled up the covers.

“Why did you bring me here?”

He blew out the candle on the side-table. “Get some rest.”

He left me, snuggled in his warm bed with my question unanswered and my wayward thoughts wreaking havoc on my frustrated body. I stared at the shadows dancing on the domed ceiling for a long time and finally drifted to sleep, heedless of the darkness waiting for me there.

I was chained to a stone slab on my back, arms and legs stretched outward, naked. Cold, damp air wrapped me in shivering fear. Borgus materialized from smoke and shadow near my feet, a lascivious grin stretching his mouth into a grotesque mask. With the tip of one finger, he started at my ankle, slid up my calf, crossed behind my knee, and grazed along my inner thigh.

“No!” I protested, unable to move an inch.

“No?” He continued up my thigh and over my pelvic bone, making circles on my abdomen. “That wasn’t what you said in the club.”

“I lied. I don’t want you. I don’t want this. I don’t want to die!”

His finger left my skin. His sickening black-eyed gaze finished the trail up my torso to my breasts to meet my terrified eyes.

“You’re not for me, lovely Moira. You’re for someone special.”

“Who?”

His mouth and eye twitched as he evaporated into wispy smoke.

An odd noise, like steel scraping stone, filled the dark chamber. Someone else was there. Veiled in a shroud of darkness, he loomed large at the foot of the stone slab. I could see no features, only the silhouette of a huge Morgon man and piercing fire-gold eyes. Smoky mist curled around him, hiding his identity. A familiar essence of evil crawled over my skin, seeping into my bones, filling me with sickening dread. The creature, for it was more monster than man, hefted himself onto the slab and over my body. A stench of rot and decay smothered me, choked me, as the thing’s face hovered over mine. Still, I could see nothing but his eyes—full dragon with black, vertical slits dilated in burning amber.

He grabbed my breast with a rough hand and squeezed. I screamed.

“Mine.” A broken, guttural voice. A demon’s voice.

He lowered his putrid body between my legs, his veiled face coming closer, cold lips clamping over my own as I screamed and screamed and screamed.

“Moira.” Someone shook me. “Wake up!”

I thrashed my arms, beating the air, beating someone else.

“
Moira
. It’s me.”

I grabbed the wrists of the hands cupping my face, finally fighting through the haze of the nightmare to see Kol above me. His eyes flashed bright, wrapping me in an unexpected sense of safety. I burst into tears and threw my arms around his neck, clinging like a child.

“Shhh.” He lay in the bed next to me, the covers having fallen to the floor. Holding and rocking me against his warm, bare chest, one hand brushed over my hair and back. “It was a nightmare. You’re okay.”

I kept crying, unable to speak at first, letting the tide of fear wash away with each soothing stroke of Kol’s hand.

“No,” I sobbed. “It was more than that. I knew him. I’d felt him before.” The tears streamed hot and fast down my cheeks, slipping sideways onto the pillow. I still clung to Kol, unwilling to let my protector go, the lingering effects of the dream still clawing my insides.

“I’d forgotten about him.” I sniffed. “He was there. Tonight. In that exit where Borgus was taking me.”

“What do you mean?” He continued to coax me with gentle hands and a soft voice.

“There was someone there. In the shadows. He was…evil. Dark as death. Waiting for us. For me.” I sobbed again. Kol brushed away the tears, but they continued to fall.