Denise Lynn - Dragon's Promise

“True. You’re right.” He agreed with her but then added, “However, there are two problems with having no contact. No matter what happens, you will never marry another man. Ever.” The smooth curve of a talon traced her spine, making her shiver with fear and unexpected longing. “Do you understand me?”

“No. I don’t. That doesn’t make any sense. We aren’t in love. We have no intentions of marrying each other.”

“Perhaps not. But dragons mate for life.”

He’d already said that. “And?”

“I can never take another mate while you live.”

She closed her eyes. This was too much. She heard his words, but they made little sense. Pinning her gaze back on his, she asked, “So, if I don’t stay with you, you’ll spend the rest of your life alone?”

“Since I have no intention of raising a son without a mother, no, I would not live alone.”

That meant— Her mind screamed. Wait a minute! No. He couldn’t be serious. Could he? She felt as if she were choking on her own breath. “You would kill me?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “How dark is that cave where your mind goes?” He shook his head. “No, I have no intention of killing you. But you are my mate. You are my child’s mother. And that’s where the second problem comes into play. If you want to see the child grow up, you’ll need to live here and trust me, you aren’t doing so with a husband in tow.”

Her stomach knotted at the implication. “Are you planning to take him away from me?”

“Absolutely. He is mine.” A low, menacing growl raced hot against her ear. “What do you care? You were going to give him to strangers.”

She trembled with dread. Her heart ached at the idea of losing her son forever. “That wasn’t my idea.”

“I didn’t hear you argue with your mother about it.”

Argue with her mother? That would have been a fine waste of time, since the woman would have simply ignored her. Never, for one second, had she worried about giving her son away—she’d had every intention of escaping with him and disappearing for good. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand? That you were going to give my child to another family in the St. George clan?” His voice was tight with what she recognized as anger. “What were they going to do with him?” He grasped her arms and threw her mother’s words in her face. “Run a sword through him and roast him on a spit like a pig?”

“No!” She tried to jerk free. “It’s not like that.”

“Then tell me what it is like.” His hold on her arms tightened. “Tell me how much love and affection the child would have received from a clan who so obviously despises what he might become.”

“Stop it. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It does make me wonder, though. Would you have attended the child’s funeral wearing black? Would you have mourned his death? Or would you have avoided the event altogether?”

Her heart beat hard and fast, making breathing difficult. The smooth huskiness of his voice, more beast now than man, frightened her more than she ever thought possible. She kicked at him, twisted her arms to claw at him.

He threw her onto the bed, landing on top of her. She swung her fists. When he did nothing more than laugh, she bared her fangs and hissed.

Sean nearly laughed in her face. “You want fangs?” He turned her head with the palm of his hand, shoving her cheek into the pillow, holding her still, and sank the tip of his fangs into the tender curve where her neck met her shoulder.

His bite laced anger through Caitlin’s growing horror. She struggled to shove him away, but he tightened his hold, sending a wave of pain shooting across her shoulder.

“Let me go.”

His beast only growled, making her wonder who was in control—the man or the dragon.

Immortality had been her birthright from her father. She’d always taken comfort knowing that outside of having her heart, or head, ripped from her body, or starving to death, nothing would end her life.

However, with Sean’s deadly fangs lodged so close to her neck, her immortality was in grave danger. The sticky warmth of her own blood soaking into her clothes only served to confirm the danger.

Submit.

The deep raspy voice of the beast flowed into her mind. But submitting to him wasn’t an option. While the Drakes and St. Georges may have become slightly more civilized these last few centuries, after today that would change.

Her resistance gained her another deeper level of pain as his jaw tightened and he shook her.

Submit.

How? Caitlin sobbed at the futility of trying to fight this beast.

Caitlin, for the sake of our child, submit.

This deep voice, while still raspy and hoarse, did not contain the undertone of a beast. It was human, and its plea touched not just her mind, but something deeper, too.

With a sob, she fell lax beneath him.

After one final halfhearted shake, he gentled, releasing her, then soothing her injured flesh with his tongue, wiping away the blood and the pain as he tended the wound. His touch knitted muscle and flesh until it was once again whole.

Satisfied the injury had been healed, Sean lifted his head to look down at her and warn, “Don’t ever fight me again.”

“You have to be kidding. I’m supposed to bow to your every whim out of fear for my life?”

He heard the angry bravado in her trembling voice. Relieved that her terror had begun to subside, he lightened his tone. “See how easily you understand?”

“You are not some commanding deity that I need to mindlessly obey.”

“Damn pity. However, it doesn’t change the fact that I am responsible for your well-being and safety. It’s instinctual. Things will go easier for you if you just do as you’re told.”

When she didn’t respond to his flippancy, or statement of fact, he rose from the bed. “I need a minute alone, and I’m sure you could use some time to yourself, too. But we obviously have a plane to catch, so be quick.” He glanced around the bedroom. “You said your luggage was in your car?”

She nodded and Sean headed toward the door. “I’ll have it sent to the plane and your car parked in the garage. Join me out front when you’re ready.”

Caitlin waited a few minutes after he’d left the room before she rolled over and buried her face in the comforter on the bed. Why had she come here? What made her think that Sean would help her get their son back without any conditions of his own? She’d known he was a dragon changeling. She also knew what that meant—demanding, possessive and oh, so arrogant in his assumption that he alone was right. Yet she’d never had so much as a second thought about coming to him.

Her breath hitched, and she swallowed the urge to cry. Was her son warm? Was he dry? Had he been fed? Did they hold him when he cried?

They wouldn’t know that he didn’t like to be rocked; he’d rather be bounced. So if they rocked him, it would only make him more upset, more agitated. What if his anxiety was more than they could handle and prompted them to do something horribly reckless?

* * *

Dozing in the corner of the ancient puzzle box, Aelthed opened his eyes and tilted his head to one side with a frown. Something was...different. There was a certain something in the air swirling about his eternal jail.

It felt like... He leaned forward, his arms wrapped around his bent legs, studying the chemistry in the air. It felt like animal lust.

Need.

Desire.

He shook his head. From where had this emotion come? Who was the object of such primordial passion?

Even after more than eight long centuries of captivity, he understood and recognized the intense longing that charged the air swirling about him like lightning in a thunderstorm.