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

She stared ahead of her, watching the golden light from the torch set into the wall behind her as it danced across the black rocks, casting shifting shadows from the stalagmites across the wall on the opposite side of the cavern.

Anais ran her hand down her right arm and frowned as her fingers brushed the wound that darted across it. She turned her arm towards her and peered at it. There was little more than a faint scar. Magic. How had Loke healed it? She knew vampires had healing saliva and believed elves did too. Did dragons also have it, or was there magic in his breath?

A flash of him as a majestic blue dragon ran across her eyes and she let the memory wash over her, invading her heart and her mind. He had been beautiful. She hadn’t been afraid of him, not until he had grabbed her. She had been too entranced to fear him, but then she had been in his front paw and instinct had driven her to fight him.

Even though he had been holding her carefully.

He could have easily crushed her.

But he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

Anais pushed him out of her mind and focused on bathing and planning. She needed to survey her surroundings, find out if there was anything she could use as a weapon in case she needed to fight, and pull her plan together so she could put it into action.

A tiny fragment of her heart hurt at the thought of breaking her vow to Loke. He had kept his, and she was planning to break hers. She wasn’t sure what that made her, but she couldn’t afford to think about it or let her feelings rule her. She needed to get away and get back to her team somehow.

Even when that small part of her still wanted to stay here, trusting that Loke would keep his other vow and would return her. It would be easier than trying to make her way back to the Third Realm when she didn’t know the topography of Hell or where she was in it.

She would need to draw Loke into telling her about the area.

She only hoped he wouldn’t grow suspicious of her.

Anais stood and let the water run off her. The air felt chilly on her damp skin, instantly sucking the heat from it. She stepped out of the pool, quickly dried off and dressed in her black combats and t-shirt. She would kill for a change of clothes, but she hadn’t spotted anything resembling a wardrobe in Loke’s cave. She had a suspicion he owned a pair of blue leather trousers and that was all.

Those trousers had disappeared when he had shifted.

Like magic.

She found herself stuck on that word. Archangel knew nothing about dragons except for their existence. It was entirely possible that they could use magic. The elves used something akin to it. They could teleport things and had telekinesis. Witches used magic. It wouldn’t surprise her if Loke could too.

Anais shoved her feet into her boots, picked up the wooden torch, and started back towards the cave mouth, following the black rock tunnel. It forked a short distance from the main cave and she glanced down the tunnel to her left, her steps slowing.

Loke had treasure.

Was it down that tunnel?

He had also warned her that he sometimes had unexpected visitors. The thought of running into something when she wasn’t armed sent a cold shiver tumbling down her spine and she turned away from the tunnel, unwilling to live up to the old adage of curiosity killing the cat.

Her steps slowed for a different reason as she entered the main area of the cave.

Loke stood with his gaze on the fire, skilfully running the edge of his knife over his cheek, scraping away dark blue stubble and leaving clean smooth skin behind. She watched him in silence, admiring his skill with the knife as he tipped his chin up and shaved his neck, never once cutting himself. Not even the tiniest of nicks.

She admired him for a different reason as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, drawing her gaze there. Masculine. Everything about this man screamed masculine. He was powerful. Honed. Intelligent. Beautiful.

She shoved against those dangerous thoughts about him and scuffed her boot on the gritty black ground so he noticed her and stopped tempting her with something she shouldn’t want.

She couldn’t pretend that she was experiencing simple want born of not having been with a man for over a year. It was desire. Full-blown, no-holes-barred, deep and dangerous desire.

The sort of desire she had never experienced before.

He flicked her a glance, his dazzling jewel-blue eyes bright in the light from the fire, and then finished shaving. When he was done, he lowered the knife, twirled it in his palm and sheathed it in one fluid move.

She stared at it. “That’s a dangerous method of shaving.”

He shrugged perfect muscular bare shoulders. “There is no other method of grooming.”

She recalled him being astounded when she had spoken of electronic goods, but she hadn’t expected his limit of technology to be a knife. She hadn’t thought about the basic necessities of life at all. No shaver. Not even a razor.

Heavens, she could kill for a razor. If her plan failed or wasn’t viable and she had to stay in the cave, she was going to need at least a razor, some perfume or deodorant, toothpaste and a toothbrush. That was the bare minimum. A change of clothes was up there, but she could wash what she had.

She was damned if she was going to shave with a knife.

She eyed Loke. He probably wouldn’t let her near it anyway. It was clear that he used that one knife for everything. Shaving. Cutting his incredible blue hair. Cooking. Everything revolved around that knife.

It was obviously quite precious to him.

If she stole it, would he let her go in exchange for having it returned?

“It’s a nice knife.” She nodded towards it and his left hand came down, settling on the spiralling metal grip.

He drew it from the sheath and stared at it for long seconds, his handsome face turning pensive and his blue eyes filling with emotions she couldn’t decipher, ones he decoded for her when he spoke, his deep voice echoing around the cave.

“It was my father’s.”

“I can see it means a lot to you.” She hadn’t expected it to mean so much though or that just mentioning the knife would affect him so dramatically. He looked lost as he stared at it, and a little broken, no longer the strong and determined male he had been just a moment ago. “Have you lost your father?”

He nodded and his expression shifted, turning even more sorrowful. “I lost my mother at the same time. The dragon wars took them both when I was two hundred. My aunt too.”

Anais’s heart went out to him. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to lose so many people who were close to him at the same time. It must have devastated him. She didn’t know whether two hundred was young or old for a dragon, but she guessed from his look that he had been young and that those two hundred years hadn’t been enough time with his parents.

“I lost my sister.” Those words slipped quietly from her lips, spoken from her heart to his, born of a need that seized control of her.

A need to connect with him and show him that he wasn’t alone in his pain.

They had both experienced loss.

He lifted his head and looked across at her, a softness in his eyes and his expression that touched her and felt dangerous. She looked away, unable to keep her gaze on him, because he was tearing down her defences again. Or maybe she was the one to blame. She had reached out to him after all. She fought the fierce gravity that tried to pull her to him and cursed herself for seeking a deeper connection with him. She didn’t want to get closer to him. She needed to focus on escaping.

Even though she felt certain it was more dangerous for her out there than it was in the cave with him.

“How?” he whispered and slowly sheathed the blade.

Anais focused on it, mentally cursing herself again for raising her sister’s death. She should have known he would ask about it and would want to know the particulars. It had been a long time since she had thought about it and even longer since she had spoken to anyone about what had happened, but it still hurt. The pain of grief was still raw even after all these years.

“I lost her nine years ago.” She kept her eyes on the blade sheathed against his left hip, afraid to look at him while she told him about her sister, letting him into her heart. She didn’t want to see how he would be looking at her. She didn’t want to see the sympathy in his rich blue eyes. She didn’t think she could bear it. “I never knew that she was a member of Archangel. I only found out after she had died. I didn’t even know the man she had married was a light fae. Christ, I had been so happy for her when she had brought him to meet me. They had been so in love.”

She closed her eyes and suppressed the sigh that wanted to leave her lips. Her sister really had been in love with him, the sort that rarely came around. True love. One that would have lasted forever. Literally in her case.

“They had a kid… a little girl.” Her throat closed and she swallowed hard, fighting the tears as she thought about Annabelle and how she was growing up in a world without her mother. “She was only a baby when Suzanne, my sister, was killed in an attack on their family home. Suzy’s husband’s enemies targeted her and the baby. He managed to save Annabelle, my niece… but my sister… the injuries… he couldn’t—”

She cut herself off as tears filled her eyes and she couldn’t breathe. Pain consumed her, tearing her heart to pieces all over again, so strong that it felt as if the attack had happened only yesterday. It had killed her when she had discovered what had happened to Suzy, and that they had almost lost Annabelle too.

She had been so angry with Aevys. She had blamed him for what had happened to her sister. He had come to her and explained, and she had wanted to hate him, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to feel that emotion towards him. He had been devastated by the loss of his mate. He had been broken.

And he had never recovered.

Whenever she visited him and Annabelle, he slowly gained a look, one that told her that seeing her pained him, even when it gave him pleasure too. He had told her once that she looked too much like Suzy. She didn’t want to hurt him, and she had told him so. She had even offered to meet with Annabelle elsewhere. He had refused, had hugged her, and told her that she was always welcome before confessing that he liked seeing her, because it reminded him of his mate.

Archangel constantly pressed her about him and she constantly lied and said she had no contact with him or her niece. She protected them. She had to, in honour of her sister’s memory, and for the sake of her niece and Aevys.

She wouldn’t let Archangel hurt them and she feared they would if they found them, shattering her fragile and carefully constructed image of the organisation that had become like family to her and was now her home.

“Anais?” Loke whispered softly and she lifted her head, a little gasp escaping her when she found him standing just inches from her, his handsome face etched with concern.

“Sorry… I was just thinking about Annabelle and Aevys.” She scrubbed her hands across her eyes and drew down a deep breath to steady herself.

“Do you still see them?” he said and she nodded.

“I pretend not to know where they live though.”

Loke’s deep blue eyebrows dipped low. “Why?”

Anais sighed. “Because of Archangel. They want to study him because he’s one of a rare breed of fae that they don’t have documented. Annabelle is just like him too.”

He backed off a step and his face darkened. “Study. It is a nice way of saying capturing, torturing and dissecting.”

She wanted to reassure him that Archangel wasn’t like that, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him again. Her earlier words to him still haunted her. She had been so quick to defend Archangel, spouting the lie without flinching, even when she knew they did bad things as well as good. They actively studied species and he was right, it did mean capturing them, holding them in cells, and often forcing them to reveal their abilities. She didn’t condone it, but she couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen.

Archangel were her family though. It was her home and it meant the world to her. She couldn’t stop herself from defending it, even when she knew deep in her heart that they did terrible things to some of the people they captured, and not all of those people were guilty of committing a crime against a human or good non-human. There was a shadier side of Archangel that many of their hunters didn’t know existed anymore, or perhaps they were like her and turned a blind eye to it because Archangel was the only family they had and the only place they could call home.

It was the only place where they belonged and fitted in, a part of something that made sense to them in a world that was no longer the one they had grown up in. She was sure many hunters felt as she did, as if Archangel was the only place for her now because she couldn’t turn back the clock and return to the time when she had been unaware of the dangerous fae and demons who shared her world.

It was a place where she could be with others like her, others whose eyes had been opened and whose heart beat with a need to protect the innocent and unsuspecting humans from the dangerous world around them.

The light from the fire faded and she glanced at it. The branches were black, nothing more than ash, threaded with glowing orange cracks. Loke looked there too and moved away from her. He gathered more wood from a stack against the side of the cave, placed it onto the dying fire, and crouched in front of it.

He leaned closer to the stack of wood, shut his eyes and frowned as he opened his mouth.

Shock rippled through her as he breathed fire.

It ceased and he raised his head, his eyes opening and locking on her. “You are surprised. Why?”

She shook herself and shrugged. “I just didn’t think you’d be able to do such a thing in your current form. Yesterday, you said you wouldn’t breathe fire… and I sort of figured that meant you couldn’t… not when you’re not a dragon.”

“You think strangely.” He sat back on his heels and prodded the fire with a stick, encouraging it to spread to the other branches. “There is no dragon and no man. There is only me. I am both. Both are one. I merely have two forms and I am comfortable with both. I do not think, feel or act any differently depending on my form. My mind and my heart remain the same. However… it is more difficult to breathe fire as I am now.”