Eternal Mates 7 - Taken by a Dragon (6 page)

She whirled to face him, a touch of rose on her cheeks. Her mouth flapped but no words came out. When he risked a step towards her, she bolted, slipping past him and rushing down the corridor. She grunted and he switched his senses to her, concerned that she had hurt herself by running into the darkness.

She had stopped a short distance into the tunnel.

He sighed when her voice rang along it.

“Bloody buggery son of a bitch.” Those words held venom that had disappeared when she next spoke, her voice far softer and weaker. “It’s a bit dark. Are you coming?”

Loke smiled and finished gathering what he needed for their meal.

He hacked the leg off the carcass with his knife and set it into the pot, and wiped the blood off the blade with a cloth that he tossed into the pot too. He grabbed the torch from the wall and strolled along the corridor, making Anais wait. The firelight danced ahead of him, reaching her first, slowly running up her legs to her torso and then illuminating her face.

She stared at her knees and muttered to herself as she dusted them down.

“Are you hurt?” He looked at her knees and then her hands, not seeing any scratches or smelling any blood on her.

She shook her head. “For the record, I’ve decided to add another rule. You have to swear not to look at me like that again.”

“Like what?” He stepped closer to her, staring down into her eyes, holding her gaze and challenging her to look away.

She truly was beautiful. The Amazons would have been proud to have her as one of their race.

“Like that.” She managed to hold his gaze but he could see she was teetering on the brink of losing her nerve and looking away.

“Like what?” he husked again, inching closer to her. “Tell me how I look at you.”

She did look away now. “Like you’re a beast and I’m your damned prey… like a barbarian who took someone captive and thinks they can do whatever they please with them.”

He dropped the pot and had her wrist in his hand before she could run away from him. She fought him as he pulled her around to face him, and he held the torch higher, afraid of hurting her with the fire. He released her wrist and had his arm around her waist a split-second later, pinning her against his front. She rained blows down on his bare chest and he let her vent her frustration, because he had more important matters to focus on than mere physical pain.

“Look at me, Little Amazon.” He waited for her to do as he had asked and when she didn’t, he dropped the torch behind him and captured her cheek. She instantly stilled and he cursed when she began to tremble, her fear an acrid note in her soft scent. He slowly skimmed his fingers down to her jaw and tilted her head up. She closed her eyes and he huffed. “Look at me, Anais.”

Using her name seemed to be the key to making her listen because she opened her eyes. Their rich sapphire depths drew him in, leaving him aware of only her.

“I am no beast or barbarian,” he murmured and wished she could believe him. “I have no intention of using you in that manner. I have sworn not to hurt you… have I not?”

She nodded.

“Then why persist with this nonsense?”

She tried to look away but he held her firm. “Because… just because. I don’t have to give you a reason.”

Because she feared the reason she had to give.

She didn’t want to voice it and tell him that he wasn’t the only one who felt desire, who was drawn to her and powerless against the ferocity of his need of such a delicate little female. She wanted him too, and for her it was infinitely more difficult to comprehend and cope with. She viewed herself as a captive and he her abductor. That alone was reason enough for her to fight her feelings.

But she had other reasons too, just as he did.

A mortal was no match for an immortal.

He brushed his fingers across her soft cheek and reluctantly released her, stepping back to give her room to gather herself. He picked up the torch and grabbed the handle of the cauldron.

“Come. I need water.” He waited for her to finish smoothing her clothes before moving.

She followed him, a silent shadow in the low light.

He searched for something to say to dispel the tension between them but nothing came to him. It had been a long time since he’d had female company, had desired one as he desired her, and he wasn’t sure how to go about things. He didn’t know how to charm females of her world, and wasn’t sure he should be charming her at all. He was trying to keep his distance, but the moment he let his guard down, he found himself close to her, seeking a way of touching her or winning a smile from her.

He banked left when they reached the end of the tunnel and led her along another one. The path sloped downwards and the air grew moist as he approached the area deep in the heart of the mountain where he had created a bathing pool and one for his store of water.

Anais busied herself with touring the large cave, her fingers drifting over the stalagmites that rose from the ground, forming jagged black spikes.

“Why live in the front of the cave when you have all these rooms?” She glanced across at him.

He dipped the small wooden pail he had made into the well near the entrance and pulled it out, setting it down on the rocky side. “The fire.”

She frowned. “What about it?”

He lifted the torch and wafted it around, making it smoke. That smoke rose up to the top of the cavern and stayed there.

Her eyes lit up with understanding. “I get it. Smoke accumulates back here.”

“It is safer at the mouth of the cave too. I can sense intruders and it is a bigger space. I can shift if I need to.” He held the pail out to her and she crossed the room to him and took it.

Perhaps she was finally settling in and becoming more comfortable with him. He wasn’t going to hold his breath though. Whenever he thought she was becoming accustomed to being around him, she revolted and turned on him again.

“What’s it like to shift?” she said to the pail.

Loke shrugged. “It is difficult to explain. It does not hurt, and it is over so quickly for me that I barely notice it. It is as natural to me as breathing or walking.”

She frowned at the water, her nose wrinkling with it. “I’ve met wolf and cat shifters. It always looks like it hurts when they shift.”

“I suspect that is because you are hunting those creatures.” He looked across at her and tried to imagine her fighting people from those species. Perhaps she was strong enough to battle cats and wolves, maybe even vampires with the right weaponry, but she was too weak to fight dragons or bears, and he definitely couldn’t imagine her surviving a fight against an elf or a demon. “They are forced to shift quickly. I have heard that it causes them great pain… but then I suppose the death you wish to deal will hurt them worse… giving them to others to butcher in the name of science.”

She raised her eyes to his, narrowing them at the same time. He had offended her again, but this time he didn’t care. Fighting with honour in a battle was one thing. Both parties knew what to expect—death if they failed. Hunting prey for handing them over to others to study was another. The losing side was expecting death, not an agonising torture at the hands of scientists.

He curled his lip again.

She huffed. “I don’t do that… so get it out of your damned head. Archangel doesn’t slice and dice. It studies, but using modern technology. Scans… machines… bloodwork. That sort of thing.”

It didn’t make him change his opinion of this Archangel she was always quick to defend.

“You do not deny that you hand over some of your prey to them though.” He began walking again, heading back towards the fire.

She didn’t respond.

He wasn’t surprised.

She worked for people who made a business of hunting and studying creatures, and he suspected that what she had been told about those studies differed greatly from what really happened.

He led her back to the cave mouth and she placed the pail on the ground near the fire and sat on the furs without him asking her to make herself comfortable.

Loke wasn’t going to read into that either.

He kneeled on the black ground by the fire in the middle of the cave and focused on making their meal. She was silent the whole time, studying him. He stopped several times, on the verge of asking her what she was thinking, before continuing with his work.

She spoke once, during her meal when she mentioned that the meat tasted like beef. He still wasn’t sure what kind of animal beef was. He had taken the empty bowl from her and served himself some stew, and by the time he had gathered the courage to ask and risk her mocking him, she had fallen asleep.

Loke set the bowl down, rose to his feet and crossed the short stretch of ground between them. He kneeled beside her and canted his head as he studied her. She lay on her left side, her back to the wall of the cave, the firelight playing over her soft features and making her fair hair shimmer like gold.

What was it about this little female that drew him to her? She had spoken about strength of heart to him, her belief shining in her words for him to hear. Was emotional strength really a match for physical strength? Did it really make a mortal capable of mating with a strong immortal?

He didn’t believe that.

He brushed a rogue strand of golden hair from her face and settled the tips of his middle and index fingers against her temple. His eyes slipped shut and he breathed deeply and evenly as he focused on her.

Dragons had limited magic born of their connection to the earth and nature. Every generation born in Hell had weaker powers than the last. He was born of the generation before the final one to bear magic.

His magic was weak and he could only use it sparingly. It would drain him and leave him vulnerable for the next few hours, but he had no choice. He couldn’t risk her waking and attempting to escape.

He funnelled a little magic into her, enough to bind her sleep to his.

If she woke, he would too.

When he woke, she would.

It was safer this way.

He hadn’t lied to her. Beyond the cave were other dragons, ones who would live up to her fears.

They wouldn’t treat her with respect as he did. They wouldn’t seek to take care of her. They wouldn’t want to protect her for no other reason than her safety meant something to them. They would only protect her because she would be theirs and dragons defended what they owned.

She would be nothing but a possession to them.

Loke stroked his fingers down her cheek.

What was she to him?

He wasn’t sure, but the longer he was around her, the more he was coming to fear he knew the reason why the thought of a prince of elves and a demon king finding their mate in a mortal female concerned him.

He had a feeling that their meeting on the battlefield had been more than chance.

It had been fate.

S
teaming water lapped at her bare breasts, rippling with each move Anais made. She washed on instinct, her focus elsewhere, around one hundred metres behind her in the main area of the cave.

With Loke.

Her fingers skimmed up and down her arms and she shivered from the light touch, a fuzzy memory of masculine fingers stroking her cheek with the same gentleness bubbling to the surface of her mind only to sink within the mire of her thoughts.

He confused her at every turn, muddled her feelings and stirred her thoughts, until she wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had snatched her from the battlefield, but not to enslave her or abuse her. He had done it to protect her. She firmly believed that. She had offended him enough times in the few hours they had been together to gather enough evidence to support his case. He wanted to protect her from whatever danger he had witnessed in a vision.

She had never met a species capable of seeing the future before.

It fascinated her.

He
fascinated her.

When he had offered to allow her to bathe, she had expected him to be present while she used his thermal pools. She had expected him to stand sentinel and ensure she didn’t attempt to escape.

He had escorted her to the cavern, using a torch to light the way. When they had arrived, he had placed the torch into a holder near the pool, and had offered her a bar of what she imagined to be homemade soap, a small scrap of cloth, and a larger piece that looked like a rustic sort of towel. Watching him instruct her on his method of cleaning had been amusing, drawing a smile from her.

When he had caught it, he had muttered something in his strange tongue, his words holding a lyrical and soft quality, and had left her alone.

Anais had been stuck thinking about him ever since.

She had sat on the rock near the pool and washed herself using the small towel, soap and a pail of water. It all felt terribly Japanese to her. The thermal vents that heated the pool kept the room warm and moist, but the water she had used to wash the suds off onto the black ground had been cold. She had literally jumped into the pool.

The moment she had sunk beneath the water, letting it lap around her shoulders, her thoughts had turned to Loke, to wondering what he was doing while she bathed.

She leaned her back against one set of the stalagmites that enclosed the pool, cupped her hand and drew the water up over her arm and shoulder again, sighing as the heat of it soothed her weary bones but failed to settle her thoughts.

It felt as if everything Loke did waged war on her, confusing her feelings and weakening her defences.

He had healed her wound for her, not once looking at her body, had taken care of her, had fed her, and had allowed her to take his bed.

She hadn’t meant to sleep. She had meant to pretend to nod off, wait for him to settle into a deep sleep, and then investigate the cave and check out the mouth of it. She knew that Loke would have been angry with her if he had caught her, but she needed to get a good look at the outside world. She would have to try again later. She felt more relaxed now. Stress and too much good food had to have been the reason she had fallen asleep. Tonight she would make sure she didn’t eat as much, and would fight the lure of sleep so she could continue with her plan.