Her Dragon's Keeper Read online

  The dragon inside him roared at the familiarity of her heat. He rubbed his cheek against the inside of her thigh. So hot, he inhaled her scent, branding it in his memory.

  As much as he yearned to taste the sweetness he inhaled, he had to ensure the safety of his fiu.

  There would be time later, he promised himself, if she survived this mysterious fever burning inside her.

  Gently, he turned her on her side. He sucked in a deep breath, all the heat in his body ignited in his groin. It didn’t help that he’d been without a mate since she left him. Only a thin layer of triangular lace protected her.

  He shifted his focus on the buckles against her back. Careful not to touch her this time, he unclasped the harness.

  He eased her flat on her back again and found her blinking to regain consciousness.

  Outside his chamber, he heard footsteps running.

  “Hurry.” Her eyes burned and her cheeks flushed red.

  “If only you would have been saying that earlier.” He laughed at her murderous expression. If not for the welfare of his fiu, he may have left her lay like this longer.

  “I’d rather die.”

  “There are worst things, assured.” Blake grabbed the egg and slowly lifted it. Emily screamed. She grabbed the egg pulling it back against her.

  “Stop!”

  Blake’s head whipped around. Naomi rushed into the room. She pressed in beside him, laying her hands on the egg.

  Emily sobbed.

  Gods, she was beautiful.

  “Back away.” Naomi leaned her shoulder into him.

  Blake moved to the head of the bed beside Emily. Naomi ran her hands over the egg, her brow creased, deepening.

  Emily continued to sob. She turned her head away from him.

  “I know dear one. I know.” Naomi’s voice soothed.

  Blake had a big ache inside him that both irritated him and surprised him. He had wanted no one like this since he had had Emily.

  Her body trembled as Naomi tried to roll the egg off to one side of her.

  “Hold her still,” Naomi said.

  Blake reached over, crossing Emily’s arms over her breast and held them there. Emily moaned, her eyes rolling back into her head. Her body drenched with sweat.

  Naomi hissed and Blake’s gaze flew to the dragoness.

  Her violet eyes stared at the egg, their slits narrowed. “What have you done?”

  Chapter Four

  Emerging from dark, wisps of swirling dreams, Emily grew aware of strange sensations. Heat, like a hot pad lie against her belly. Intense thirst. Light shining against her closed eyes. A soft, feather like cloud embraced her. Music. A deep tenor voice, so sad, so filled with love and grief, it bore into her heart and made her want to cry. And the waft of salt water from the air mingled with pine.

  With great effort, she lifted her eyelids. Slowly, her surroundings came into focus, a room strangely familiar, but unfamiliar. Sunlight washed the bed chamber in white. She glanced to her left and her breath caught.

  She was in his chamber—Blake’s bedroom.

  She reached up and pulled her hand through her hair, finding it knotted and twisted. Had she fallen in bed with him?

  No, her mind relived its last recollected thoughts.

  Emily shot straight up in bed, but the sudden movement flung her back again. She flipped back the covers and gasped. She still had the dragon’s egg. She flipped the covers back over her nakedness. Her eyes scanned the room.

  Slowly, the song came to an end.

  Emily’s heart beat wildly in her chest. Aunt Margaret! Jacques?

  She had to get out of here. She squinted trying to see out the window. If it was morning, then she missed the ferry!

  Jacques wouldn’t have gone without her. She sighed in relief; at least she still had one option of getting out of here.

  She didn’t know what had come over her. She pressed her hand over her lips remembering Blake’s kiss. A feeling stirred within her, a craving she had suppressed long ago.

  She tossed her feet up over the bed and held onto the egg. Where was her harness? Her skin tingled around the egg. Slowly, she removed one hand, as not to drop the egg. Its shell pressed deep into the folds of her skin. Her breasts rested against the top of the egg.

  She rubbed the shell, no longer coarse, but smooth and warm. What happened while she slept?

  Slowly, she removed her other hand. “This can’t be,” she whispered.

  Her father would know what to do. She wouldn’t panic. Not now. Jacques had trained her better than this.

  She didn’t spot her dress anywhere. Or her shoes. She didn’t need shoes. She needed to get out of here.

  Emily folded the bed sheet from behind her. She grabbed the long narrow-folded fabric in the middle and wrapped it around her breast. Then she crisscrossed it and worked her way down over her now egg protruding belly and hips. Crisscrossing it back up under the egg she tied the two ends off to the side.

  She walked across the room, listening for the singing voice, but it had faded to silence. She leaned against the heavy wooden door. Pushing it open she heard voices through the opening.

  “You sure you can’t cut it from her body?”

  Her arms wrapped around the egg. A shiver spread down her spine, causing her to tremble.

  “How else do you suggest we separate the two?”

  Of course, they would want to keep the egg and dispose of her.

  It was hard to identify the owner of the voice. Blake’s? Or no, this voice was deeper, it echoed down the hall.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “How?”

  Emily strained, leaning harder against the door. It creaked and froze.

  “She must have—”

  Footsteps moved in her direction, Emily shut the door and waddled her way back to the bed. She placed her hand underneath the egg, her usual quick movements encumbered.

  Behind her, the bedchamber door opened. Darkness from the hall cast a glowing halo around Blake.

  “Finally, she awakes.” A sly grin curved his lips, one that reached into his eyes.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Better to distract him, keep calm, until she figured out her next move. Egg attached to her flesh or not, she wouldn’t give it to him. Not without a fight. His kind didn’t appreciate the life still preserved inside.

  Keeping his eyes trained on her, he circled her slowly. “I wondered how long it would take to get you tangled in my bed sheets again.”

  “And now you know.” She had seen that look in his eyes before, undressing her in his mind, but not like this. Not when his eyes caressed her so intimately with their stare.

  “Unfortunately, there is still a matter of Saturday evening’s performance.”

  “Saturday? What day is this?”

  “Tuesday. Apparently, attempted robbery is exhausting.” If this was his way of trying to joke with her, she didn’t find him amusing.

  “Attempted? More like successful. I still have the egg, don’t I?”

  “You’re lucky to still be alive.”

  “Don’t tell me. You’ve decided to cut off my hand instead?”

  “Is this some sort of payback?” His voice turned hoarse with emotion. It tugged at the part of her heart she’d locked a long time ago.

  “Payback?” She crossed her arms and glared at him. He really didn’t know her all that well.

  “How much did you think you could get for a dragon’s egg on the black market? That’s where you would sell it, wouldn’t you? It’s illegal otherwise to sell a live egg of any wild species. Even if you import it, you couldn’t sell it unless you hollowed the shell like the ones your aunt paints. Is that what you were going to do to my fiu?”

  Emily tilted her chin up. “We don’t sell live eggs on any market, nor do we steal them.”

  “Really?” If looks could kill she would have been dead two seconds ago. “If you don’t steal what do you call coming into a man’s home and taking his
fiu? I believe they call that kidnapping.”

  “It’s not kidnapping, either.”

  “What do you call it then?”

  “Rescue. Saving, Preserving life. You choose.” She kept her arms wrapped around the egg.

  “The only thing I see needing rescuing around here is you, Emily Reese Kovak. There are other ways to get back at a man then taking his only child.”

  “Child? Yours? But that would mean…” Emily’s chest grew heavy. Pressure from inside the egg slammed against her ribs. She groaned, not from her situation but from her aching side.

  “It appears we both have our secrets.”

  “I never lied to you.”

  Knowing it didn’t stop her heart from quickening as he sank his fingers in her hair, tipping her face up to look at him. “You never loved me either. Why else would you have bolted when you discovered my dragon side?”

  Keepers didn’t mate with dragons. It was what got her ancestors in trouble in the first place. Her heart skipped a beat. Is that what he really thought? She’d left him because she discovered his dragon side?

  “Says the one with a dragoness. Tell me did she know? Did you return to your lair that morning after you bedded me?”

  A mistake. One she would not make again in the future.

  Blake stiffened, his eyes, those of a feral dragon. Rage imprinted on his human face as he released her.

  Emily didn’t move. Her gaze locked on the bedroom door behind him. Once she got close enough, she’d be able to escape. She’d been young, native, to think he cared for her.

  “Melsunia has been gone from this world for nearly a century. She died protecting our fiu from a pack of hunters.”

  Lost for words, Emily blinked. She felt worse than a heel. Of course, he would be a widow. Several years her senior in human years, he could be centuries old. At least their curse hadn’t taken away their prolonged life span.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. “Of course, she did.”

  Which is why he was free to lie with whomever he wished. Her included.

  “Not that it matters now, but I’m sorry for your loss.” And she sincerely meant it.

  “It matters a great deal, especially as it seems you and I are going to be together for a very long time. Trust is most important.”

  “And why should I trust you?”

  “Because I’m the only thing keeping you alive in this Manor.”

  “So, that is it? I assume I will have to stay here until this little one cracks its shell. Then I’ll no longer be of use to you and you’ll dispose of me.”

  “I can’t very well let you go, can I?”

  “No, I suppose not. At least until it hatches.”

  “You’re still not leaving the manor. For some reason, my fiu has grown quite attached to you.”

  “No kidding.” She rubbed the egg.

  “You may go anywhere you wish here in the manor. Naomi and Olaus will see to your needs.”

  “And what needs will you see to?”

  A slow, lazy, smile spread across his face.

  She rubbed the egg, it soothed her, calmed her rising anxiety. She couldn’t get involved with him. She made that mistake once. Besides, it wasn’t her he wanted. Feeling protective of the egg, she remembered her mission. She wouldn’t let her family down, and Emily didn’t plan on becoming a disappointment to them.

  “It’s forbidden,” she said, breathless. If only she could control the pressure from the egg on various spots against her lungs.

  “Not if we are one.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Dragon to dragon, human to human, a shifter to a human…maybe… But she was not any ordinary human—she was a descent of the dragon riders. She wrapped her hand around the pendant still resting near the valley of her breast.

  “You didn’t think I could allow you to have my fiu without first taking you as my mate, did you?” Golden flecks exploded in his eyes.

  “I can’t!”

  Narrow slits replaced his pupils. “If you’re worried about your fury, he sends his blessings.”

  “He’s not my…” Suddenly, she found it hard to breathe. Jacques! “What have you done to him?”

  “He and your aunt fled the manor after knowing you would survive.”

  Jacques wouldn’t have left her here. Not without planning on returning for her. “How do you know he and I aren’t together?”

  “You just confirmed it.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, but then snapped it closed. What had she done?

  She would curse him if her addled brain could think of a good word to curse him with. Then she’d think of another for Jacques for leaving her here.

  Chapter Five

  Blake plucked a few more cords of his electric guitar. Why, after all these years, did Melsunia’s egg attach to a human female, would remain a mystery to him. And Emily of all of them?

  Maybe she had a bit of dragon blood, but it had been obvious the fury dragon, Jacques, held some kind of bond with her. So much so, he’d been reluctant to let her go.

  He shook his head. To think she might have gotten away with her little charade if he hadn’t needed to return to his chamber for his forgotten cuff links.

  Sigurd opened the door and Olaus stepped in carrying a tray into the sound proof room. “Has Edmund returned?”

  Blake furrowed his brow. “No.”

  “Do we practice without him?” Sigurd picked a guitar hanging on the wall. He kissed the shiny black instrument and whispered something too low to hear.

  “Naomi saw him during the commotion of the party.” Olaus sat a tray of bottled waters down on a stand not far from Blake.

  “Any word?”

  “Not as of yet,” Olaus said.

  “Where did you send him?” Sigurd slipped the guitar strap over his chest. “You know we’ve got that appearance at Stonehenge coming up.”

  “There are more important matters then music. I fear our haven has been discovered.”

  “Has it?” Blake sat his guitar back in its rest and stood. “I don’t believe they came looking for us. They’re treasure seekers, not dragon hunters.”

  “And you think it is wise to hold onto the thief?” Bogdan walked in, late as usual.

  “Where have you been?” Blake wasn’t fooled for a moment by his comrade’s grin.

  Bogdan cracked his knuckles and chuckled. “Not all of us intend to remain celibate in this life.”

  “Our fearless leader here has got himself a woman locked in his chambers. And he found her there! Talk about lucky.” Sigurd grabbed for one of the bottles of water Olaus brought in earlier.

  “And would it have been luck should she have escaped with Master Blake’s fiu?”

  Blake understood the older druk’s fears. Like the dragons before him, Olaus believed in the curse. In the old man’s mind, the humans not the dragons caused their way of life to change.

  But that didn’t matter that it was illegal to possess or sale eggs of any wild bird or beast. In the government’s attempt to protect their kind, they fueled the black market for egg collectors. Dragon’s eggs were the rarest to find in a collection. Not many of their eggs existed these days, since walking amongst the humans, most of their females had stopped lying eggs ages ago.

  Which is why, Blake still struggled to understand Melsunia’s reasoning for laying her egg in dragon form, if only she would have given birth as a human, their son would be grown now.

  “No way!” Bogdan said.

  “She’s hot man, real hot!” Sigurd waved his hand as if he’d been burnt.

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  “What should be done to all who steal the unborn of the draconian,” Olaus said, bitterly. “In the days of old, we would have never allowed this to happen.”

  Bogdan slapped his hand down on Olaus’s raised shoulder. “Come now, we younger druks need to let out a little steam now and again. Blake caught the thief, didn’t he?”

  “Red handed,” Sigurd said.
“You’ll never guess who she is.”

  “Who?” Bogdan asked.

  There was silence amongst them. Sigurd looked at Blake as he said, “Emily.”

  “Emily? The girl who… No! Seriously?” Bogdan said.

  “This will not bode well for any of us. You should have sent her body back with Edmund.”

  Sigurd shivered visibly. “Man, that’s harsh.”

  “We have to protect our way of life; she should be made an example of for the hunters who stalk us.”

  Blake supposed there was truth to Olaus’s fears, but the old man’s convictions to the old ways didn’t bode well with him. Olaus found it unthinkable to blame the dragons or fate for any part of robbing elder dragons of their way of life.

  In Blake’s eyes, Edmund’s refusal to return to the manor house and Olaus’s harsh judgment meant Emily’s deed would not be forgiven. And that was unthinkable to Blake. He wanted dragons to reclaim a place in society, no longer hiding away remotely in the mountains or on an island.

  With a sigh, Blake said, “The old ways are no longer our ways.”

  Olaus puffed out his chest. “You forget who we are.”

  “As if you’d let us forget.” Sigurd crossed his arms over his guitar. He like the rest of them anxious to rock and loose themselves in their music. “I, for one, like Emily. Maybe she’ll sing with us again.”

  “She must be dealt with,” Olaus said.

  “I have already claimed her. She is my mate and therefore is under my protection.” Blake’s patience dwindled.

  Bogdan pulled Olaus into a man hug. A head taller than the elder man, he patted Olaus on the back. “There. There. Blake’s got this.”

  “Man, you work fast,” Sigurd held up his hand for a high five.

  Olaus elbowed Bodgan, jerking away from the taller and younger druk. He narrowed his eyes on Blake. “To mate with a human you bring the wrath among us. The fires of the Gods will…”

  “That’s enough!” Blake roared.

  Sigurd’s hand swept down over his guitar strings and startled, Olaus stepped back. He spun on his heel, heading for the door. A few months ago, Olaus had retreated to his place in the mountains to rest. Not long enough, for he looked as gaunt and frail as ever.