Her Dragon's Keeper Read online

  She took a deep breath and sang allowing the wind to carry her voice. With time against her, she made up her own words, “Come for me, my dragon. I am here. Come for me, my dragon. Let us fly as one. Come for me, my dragon, the heavens call us near. Carry me between your wings…”

  In the distance, she heard a dragon’s cry.

  She raised her arms, waving for him to spot her. “Come on Jacques, where are you?” she listened to the waters slosh against the dock in reply.

  She didn’t know how long before Blake would return. It could be any one of them answering her with that cry. She couldn’t tell at this distance and hoped upon all hope it was Jacques answering her summons.

  “Come for me, my dragon…”

  A large creature swooped down. Emily’s heart skipped a beat. Jacques! She nearly wept at the sight of his stealth-like black body veering towards her. She backed up waiting for him to land, but he didn’t slow down. “Stop!” She turned, running down the dock as fast as the egg would allow her. Two scale covered arms plucked her from the ground.

  Chapter Nine

  She awoke, back in his bed, and her arm above her head. She pulled, but she was handcuffed to the bedpost. It didn’t matter her other hand remained free. Without the key, she couldn’t get it off.

  She shivered, he’d taken her dress. No sheets or blankets on the bed. She had nothing on but her lace bra and panties. Her cheeks burned. Draped over a chair near the window she spotted his discarded white button-down shirt.

  She couldn’t reach it.

  She gazed up. The bed post didn’t reach the ceiling. Carefully, she held onto the bed post and stood on the bed. Felt something bump against her belly and she pressed her hand there. The occupant inside pressed against the spot beneath her hand. She knew because this part of the egg grew warmer under her touch. “Sorry baby, but I’ve got to get us out of here.”

  She stretched her hand up as high as she could. Then she used her foot on the headboard to leverage up farther. Almost to the top of the post she held on with her free hand. Stretching a bit higher, the cuff-end almost up over the post, she heard a throat clear at the foot of the bed.

  Startled, she looked over her shoulder.

  Blake stood, bared to the waist. His tattoos glowed against his sun-kissed skin. With his hair glistening wet, he appeared right out of the shower, no socks and just a pair of faded, ripped, jeans.

  Sensing the direction his thoughts took, Emily kept her back to him. “You never seemed the type that would cuff a girl to your bed.”

  “You’ve been a naughty girl, Emily Reese.”

  She hugged closer to the bedpost. Her heart quickened.

  “Why don’t you step down, before you hurt yourself and the fiu?”

  “And spoil all the fun?”

  Challenge glinted in his eyes. “How is it that you called your dragon? Something about embracing you between my wings?”

  “It wasn’t intended for you. Where is Jacques?”

  He grabbed the post and swung up on the bed behind her. Compared to Jacques, Blake’s legs were longer, his hips not as narrow, and he did not possess any lack of muscle. Still for all his mortal flesh, he could take her breath away—even for a dragon.

  He pressed his hard-muscled chest against her back. It took most of her willpower not to lean back into his warm, golden, bare chest embrace.

  “I told him to wait. You ruined my surprise.” He wrapped an arm around her and reached up with the other.

  She closed her eyes, trying to ignore his state of undress, his closeness, and the way her body longed to get close to him. “What have you done with him?”

  “Nothing like what I’m going to do to you,” he whispered.

  When she opened her eyes, pure, raw, unadulterated desire stared back at her through those golden orbs.

  He caressed her arm and she relaxed it. He pulled it down from above her head, still cuffed to the post. He caressed her shoulder, pushing the long strands of her hair away to bare her back to him. He kissed her lightly on the shoulder, the back of her neck, her ear. She felt the clasp on the back of her bra release. Only then did he press closer. His hand traced down along the bumps and curvature of her spine.

  She released a shuddering breath, melting back against him. He coaxed her down on her knees on the bed. And when she did, he held her back against him. He peeled the straps of her bra down over her shoulder, guiding her un-cuffed arm free of the strap. He hooked a finger in the front of one lacy cup and tugged it down and then the other.

  He sucked and nipped at her neck. Cradling the pillows of her breast in his hands, he flicked his thumbs over her nipples sending a jolt of desire coursing through her body. She didn’t know if it was possible to get him close enough. Every inch of her flesh screamed for his touch.

  Reaching back, she entangled her hand deep into his hair. His hands pressed and caressed and explored. Lost in her own haze of passion, she couldn’t deny him.

  With one hand still fondling her breast, he traced the contours of her neck, sliding down against the hollow of her throat. Her pulse pounding against his touch, her heart drumming to the same beat. Against her belly, his fiu nestled at the bottom of its shell.

  Lightly, the back of his knuckles swept down over where flesh and egg melded at her abdomen. She whimpered, feeling his whisper soft touch dip beneath the curve of the egg to her hip. Lower, his fingertips slipped beneath her lace panties to graze the dark locks below. Emily’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Sing for me, I want to hear you cry my name.” Blake buried his face in her hair. He traced her damp seam and as he plunged a finger into her sex, she cried out. She reached down, but he stopped just long enough to take her hand, placing it against the headboard. She rocked against his hand. Her body betrayed her. She couldn’t stop. He found the knot between her folds and she trembled against him.

  “Come my siren, sing for me.”

  Her breath caught as he circled her clit with his thumb and when he sank a second finger inside her, she moaned. Damn, he knew where to find her spot. She opened her legs wider. “Please,” she pleaded.

  “Not yet, love.”

  The wet walls of her sex clenched around his fingers. She whimpered. Faster and faster he rubbed his thumb over her silken knot, her inner thighs quivering with each touch. She tried to press her legs back together around his hand.

  “Wider.” He nudged her legs back apart with his jean clad knee until she did as he asked. She gripped the bedpost and the headboard. She threw her head back against his shoulder as his fingers thrust harder.

  Just when she felt on the edge of release, he withdrew from her. The sound that left her lips came out almost savage, estranged, like a wounded animal.

  “I’d forgotten how hot and tight you are.” He sank his teeth in her shoulder, enough for the pain to heighten the pleasure of her flesh. She heard him unzip his fly.

  With one arm around her hips he pulled her back until she was on her knees with one hand steadying her and the other still gripping the bedpost. She felt him sliding down her panties. She lifted one knee and then the other until she was free of them.

  She looked back, as he finished sliding his jeans down. Desperate for release, she tried to jerk back to meet his thrust, but the metal cuff held her to the bed post.

  Hoarsely, he cried out her name, gripping her hips, thrusting deeper, deeper. Then everything shattered inside her. Emily sobbed as he lunged forward taking her beyond the sphere of any pleasure she’d felt before. She needed more of him, all of him, and as she felt his release she knew she belonged with him.

  Chapter Ten

  He would have laid there for hours with Emily curled up against him if not for the duties which awaited him on the other side of his bedchamber door.

  Slowly, he eased out from beneath the arm and leg he used to keep her close, and Emily stirred. The sheet he placed over them earlier slipped down off her body as she yawned and stretched.

  By the time he
pulled on pants and a shirt, she sat up and blinked. Blake bent down, kissed her lips, leaned his forehead against hers, and brushed a finger down her cheek. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”

  “And if I don’t?” her voice husky, still laced with sleep.

  His gut twisted. “Promise me Emily. Promise me you won’t try to run from me again.”

  After a long look into his eyes she resigned. “As you wish, Lord Giresun.”

  He growled, pulled her to him and conquered her mouth with a kiss he hoped would keep him in her thoughts long into the afternoon. Tempted to toss aside the sheet, to crawl back into the bed with her, he pulled himself away at the sound of a knock on his door.

  “Promise me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Promise.”

  “Good girl.” He glanced at the empty handcuff left dangling from his bedpost and grinned.

  The knock sounded again and he slipped out of the room.

  “Sorry to disturb the honeymoon.” Bogdan’s dirty blond hair hung down his back. He fell in step alongside Blake as they walked down the hall. “Should I have someone outside the door to see that she doesn’t run again?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” On second hand.... He looked back over his shoulder at his bedchamber door. As her mate, as the pendragon, he needed to keep her and his fui safe. Whatever Margaret Moldvan plan may not have succeeded, but he wouldn’t allow himself to become fooled by another attempt to steal from him a second time.

  “Should I send for Siggy boy to stand guard?”

  “Please.” Blake reached up and touched the pendent Emily gave him. “Any word from Edmund?”

  “He located the art gallery in Seattle.”

  “Indeed. America then. It would seem Emily’s fury speaks true.”

  “Aye, but the trail went cold. Edmund says he has a way of picking it up again. We shouldn’t have left them leave. Perhaps I should go there as the two of us should be able to track her better.”

  Blake tapped a finger on the pendant. “Leave it to Edmund for now. I need you here.”

  With Olaus taken flight and Garth injured, Blake couldn’t afford to spread his herd out until he understood what he was up against. He hadn’t made up his mind if Margaret Moldvan’s failed scheme compared to what he must face should the draconian counsel summon him.

  “Don’t you want to know who is behind the attempt to steal your fui?”

  His dragon flared inside him and his blood turned hot with anger spreading through his veins. Angry at Emily for trying to steal his fui. Angry because he should have known better than to allow strangers to cross onto their island. Angrier at himself for not branding her, holding on to her, having her discover his dragon-side like she did.

  But he couldn’t take back the past any more than he could stop loving her, especially now that he’d bonded with her.

  “I believe a certain young fury may have some of the answers we need.”

  He didn’t want to cause strife with the elders, but thanks to Moldavan and her brazen attempt to breach dragon territory, she’d handed him another option to challenge the past and secure his and Emily’s future together.

  On the other side of the door, Emily waited and listened for the footsteps to fade down the hall. She considered his request, knowing how much she’d enjoyed the last few hours, and decided staying in his bed was a bad idea.

  Even now, she found it hard to leave it.

  Sleep would certainly recharge her, but the lust humming in her veins for him fogged her brain.

  She took a breath, got out of bed and dressed back in her blue dress. She could still feel his touch, his heat driving inside her, and she closed her eyes for a brief moment to savor that feeling.

  She couldn’t walk away from him any more then Margaret could expect her to part with the fui which had attached itself to her. Needed her. Chosen her. She didn’t quite think Aunt Maragret had this in mind when she’d been appointed to extract the egg and deliver it.

  There could have been no way for her to know her heart would grow attached, both to the babe and to the dragon who sired it. She should have left the past in the past. Her mother taught her to keep her focus on the mission and seek last the reward.

  Seeing Blake again, being near him, had shattered her resolve. He intimated her, here, now, but not then. Not when he hadn’t known she was the daughter of a Dragon Keeper. Nor her with the knowledge he was a dragon.

  Isn’t that why she never told him? Had she feared his reaction if he knew the truth of what her family did? What she ran from to find him in the first place?

  But none of it mattered now. Her mother died to keep the dragons’ secret safe. Someone had to take her place and as the only blood child, Emily didn’t have a choice.

  She and Blake had a past, but they didn’t have a future. Regardless of their union, human and dragon bond, neither one of their sides would acknowledge it.

  Margaret would expect her to complete her mission. Whatever family she planned on placing this egg with would have to await another. Emily couldn’t give up her dragon’s baby. It made no difference this fui came from another female.

  Had this been what her mother felt? What Aunt Margaret felt when Ash and Jacques came into their lives?

  Jacques! He’d come back for her!

  She had to find him, had to have him send a message to Aunt Margaret about the egg. She would understand. They’d been misinformed.

  Emily opened the door, about to rush out when, Sigurd stepped in the doorway. He grinned at her, held up a credit card, and wiggled his brows. “Up for a bit of shopping?”

  “You always did know the way to a girl’s heart.”

  He chuckled, offered her his arm. “I’ve an errand to run in the village is all. Since your mate is dealing with a matter of certain importance, I’ve been authorized to see to it the new Lady Giresun indulges in a new wardrobe befitting her new…status.” Sigurd’s eyes swept down over her playfully pausing at her mid-section.

  She remembered Naomi’s mate Garth had been attacked by the elder dragon after the ceremony. “An afternoon in the village sounds splendid.” She put her best English accent forth to match Sigurd’s. “I don’t suppose you could point me in the direction of a black fury dragon by the name of Jacques on the way, could you?”

  She batted her lashes and pouted like she had in the past to persuade him.

  “No. That I cannot.” Sigurd’s face softened.

  She knew when not to push her luck.

  “To the village then.” She took Sigurd’s arm, curious to visit the village, see more of her island prison, determined to figure out a way to keep her dragon and his fui without having her family pay the price for her breaking their society’s law.

  “We’ll visit the village café first. Then I’ll take you to Azel’s. She will have what you need.”

  “Why Sigurd, I didn’t take you for one who liked to shop. I always thought dragons refused to share their treasurer or spend it.”

  “Yes, but not when it belongs to someone else,” Sigurd said.

  “It would seem there are still some things I have yet to discover about you all.”

  Like discovering Jacques whereabouts and why Blake never speaks of the one who laid the egg which attached itself to her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Blake found her in the solar standing in front of the large bay window overlooking the ocean from the eastern side of the island. She wore a simple green dress, short in the front and long in the back. A pair of white crochet sandals covered her toes. He recognized them from the kind they made down in the village on the coastal side of the island.

  She’d turned her face from the setting sun and smiled at him. All day long, his mind distracted him with visions of her sultry eyes, coy smile, and shapely body.

  He’d beaten her at her own game of seduction. Damned if he would let her leave him again.

  Not now.

  Not when she’d cited the promise in their union, given him a piece of
her, shared with him Melsunia’s gift. He moved beside her, slipping his arm around her.

  “I see you found me.”

  “I will always find you.” He caught a strand of her hair, twisting if around his fingers.

  “It’s not like I can go far.”

  At least they were making progress. Slow. “If you are talking about Sigurd standing outside the door, he worries about you. He missed you, too, when you disappeared.”

  “I suppose I should thank you for the new clothes. Sigurd insisted I splurge a bit. Especially now that I am the lady of the manor and all.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t make it to the village before. Naomi was a bit occupied with cleaning up after the dinner party, then or ceremony, and none of us could have expected Olaus to behave as he did.”

  She leaned back against him. “I’m sorry someone got hurt. There is a reason why we are band from bonding with dragons.”

  “It was selfish. It is selfish to punish others for the actions of one. When a dragon finds their life mate they are bond for life. It does not matter if their other half is human or dragon. Because of revenge, jealously, perhaps fear—dragons are forced to suffer by never becoming whole.”

  He couldn’t explain it to her. Didn’t know how he could tell her what if felt like to have her near, to be one with her. It completed him. Satisfied an ache he’d had until the day he’d met her. Like a wound finally healed, that even his dragon mate couldn’t sooth during their half century together.

  “My mother used to tell me the story of the dragon rider who fell in love with his dragon. He had a wife and she became jealous, so jealous she tried to kill the dragon. Only the dragon protected herself and the man’s wife died. Soon the dragon gave birth to the man’s child, one that could shift between his human form and dragon side. The dragon’s saw this as a curse and sought to retaliate against the other human riders.”