Billionaire Dragon's Mate: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Dragon Romance Nove (14 page)

Ruby perked up a bit. That did sound like something Cable would do. And as much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t sure if her father couldn’t be swayed to get on board with the plan. Cable wasn’t the only one losing power, and having a big werewolf pack on their side would make the Accardos a bigger force to be reckoned with. Her stomach twisted.

What a giant mess! There could be a way out of it, though. There had to be! A realization dawned on her, and it got her almost excited, but then the hope was dashed once more.

“Shit,” Ruby exclaimed, looking down at herself.

She was still wearing the same clothes as when she’d been picked up at Emerald Ridge, but there was one very important thing missing.

The pendant.
She bit her lower lip.
Damn you, Cable.

“Yaya, do you know what happened to the pendant I was wearing?”

“You mean the glowy rock thingy? Well, when they got in, Cable was with some guy who looked like he had stepped out of
GQ
. They were bringing you in, but when he saw the pendant, he told Cable to take it off of you. That it was important. I think Cable kept it.”

“Dammit. I need that pendant,” she said, her mind racing.

Across the room, a slinky red dress had been laid out on a chair, along with super high and sexy black pumps and a small makeup kit. Her brows knit together, and then her expression cleared. Of course! She could beat him at his own game.

“You said they want to hold a rehearsal dinner tonight, right?” Ruby asked.

She took the cold cloth off her head and rolling her shoulders back, preparing herself both mentally and physically to put on one hell of a show.

“Yup. Cable was actually just in here, telling me to get you up. I think he wants you all dolled up.”

“Oh, he’s going to get just that,” Ruby said, a sly smile spreading over her lips.

Screw this, she could handle Cable. Or at least turn the tides in her favor.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cillian

Cillian kept high above the clouds, out of sight of any curious onlookers. Even if someone spotted him, he would just look like an oddly flying jet at that altitude. He’d been scouring the lands for days now, trying to find the slightest glimpse of his missing mate, and so far he’d had no luck. When he realized that Ruby was long gone, he could only think of one place to look for her – Chicago.

His maw contorted in a snarl, showing his huge fangs and his serpentine tongue. It was as if his muscles were slowly icing over, his movements growing more sluggish. Each moment she spent away from him made him more apathetic towards everything other than finding her. He hadn’t slept or eaten since she disappeared; instead he’d spent his time scouring the lands in the hopes of figuring out what had happened to her.

He couldn’t believe Ruby would just run without saying a word. From Cable, yes, but not from him. Or at least he hoped she wouldn’t. His mate thinking that he was as bad as some half-witted werewolf would really have killed him – if being without her didn’t get him first, that is. When he realized that someone else might have been behind Ruby’s disappearing act, his blood had boiled so hot he thought he would explode.

Carrick had made himself scarce after his most recent appearance. And when his little brother had failed to reappear at the keep to throw the challenge in his face, Cillian had got the sickening feeling that the person orchestrating his worst nightmare might be another Greenmeadow. And of course, there was Cable, Ruby’s knight in shining leather. The thought of his grubby hands on her body made Cillian want to destroy everything in sight.

Cillian had turned and headed straight for Chicago as soon as the discoveries hit him during his frantic, worried searches through the woods and mountains of Emerald Ridge. It was faster to fly than to deal with the jet and try to behave like everything was perfectly okay – nothing was fucking okay.

Why hasn’t she used the pendant if she’s in trouble?
he asked himself for the umpteenth time.

The possibility that she just didn’t want to be near him was too much to bear, so he ignored that option completely. No, the only way to hold onto his sanity was to believe that she was in danger, and that for some reason, she couldn’t call for him.

An angry dragon was a curse one wouldn’t even wish on his worst enemy, and right now, Cillian Greenmeadow was blind with rage, grief and worry. Anyone that
got in his way would have a very bad day. 

***

It was nightfall when he made it to Chicago. The small bit of him that could still think rationally was grateful for the cover of darkness, making his arrival on top of one of the skyscrapers less of a newsworthy event. The tall building shuddered and creaked under his sudden weight. Cillian tucked his wings by his sides, and with thick smoke still wafting out of his flared nostrils, he turned from his dragon form for the first time in days. It was a painful experience.

The more power he gave to the ancient being, the less it wanted to be governed by the man. But Cillian knew he would have to embrace his humanity if there was any hope of keeping a hold on his sanity. Staying in dragon from would be a quick and very bumpy road straight to madness. He wouldn’t have been the first dragon the Treasure Lane’s council has had to put out of their misery after they lost their mind with grief. It happened more often than they cared to admit.

Sometimes, even the most steadfast and centered dragons would go insane after the death or loss of their mate. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Cillian clutched his chest, falling to his knees with gritted teeth. His heart pounded so hard he thought it would pry his ribs aside and jump out.

“Fucking hell,” he murmured, propping himself up with one hand.

He was back in his jeans and leather jacket, looking like any hoodlum. The gold cuffs glinted back at him under the light of the moon. He looked up at it – just one more night before the gold moon. He’d have to find Ruby now or risk being without her forever.

If Cable married her during the gold moon, he wouldn’t have many options left, other than killing the man. And he wasn’t sure if that was something he could get away with. But he had no doubt that he would do just that, if he got the slightest feeling that it would mean Ruby’s safety. He exhaled sharply. For a man, who prided himself in fixing problems, he sure wished he had a better handle on his own.

Slowly, the ache in his chest subsided, and the unsettling sensation of his skin crawling and wanting to turn back into scales lessened until he could regain control of his own body again. Cillian stood up, his muscles protesting to being on two legs again. He’d never given the dragon such thorough and long reign before, and now he had to deal with the consequences. Still, he couldn’t fault the primal being within him.

Cillian wasn’t sure if he could have given up searching Colorado in time to realize that where he truly needed to be was in Chicago. With his legs still shuddering a bit, he went to the door that led down into the building and disappeared into the stairwell. It was the building his apartment was in. He’d picked the highest building he could for good reason.

When he made it to his door, he moved to unlock it, but the door was already open. A cold chill ran down his spine as he cautiously pushed it open and stepped in, fishing out his brass knuckles and slipping them over his right hand.

“Who’s there?” he called, his deep voice tinted with just the right amount of ‘fuck with me and end up in a body bag’.

When he caught movement in the corner of his eye, his stance went rigid. It didn’t relax an ounce when the man standing up from his black leather couch turned out to be his little brother.

“How nice of you to join me, brother,” Carrick said softly, swirling some whiskey in one of Cillian’s tumblers.

“Cut the bullshit. Where’s Ruby?” Cillian barked, flexing his hands experimentally.

Getting angry only made the dragon want to lash out harder. It wasn’t an easy task to keep from shifting right in the middle of his living room. Smoke was gathering and pluming out of his nostrils like something straight out of science fiction, and he could feel the fire warming his belly and wanting to rise to a boil in him. At least he left Carrick with no doubts about his current mood – pissed, so fucking pissed.

“I don’t know where she is,” Carrick said languidly, strolling to the window and taking a sip of his drink.

He looked so different and yet so similar to Cillian. Both carried themselves with pride, obviously different branches of the same tree. While Carrick bore a distinct stench of Old World entitlement, Cillian was the spitting image of new age rebellion. Where Carrick was starched, buttoned up, severe and strict, Cillian was fluid, loose and ready to roll with the punches the world gave him.

Unless those hits included taking away his mate. That he could not abide by.

“I doubt that’s true. What are you doing here?” Cillian asked, forcing down the rage in his voice.

He pocketed the brass knuckles, though the desire to break something,
anything,
still roiled inside of him. The dragon was set in its ways, and it wanted some destruction.

“I’m here to see if you’ll stop this nonsense and act like a Greenmeadow is supposed to. What would the rest of the Council say?”

“They’d tell me to go for it. This is not the fucking Middle Ages anymore, Carrick. We don’t carry princesses off into the sunset. And unless we get over living in the past, we’re as good as trash in the bin of history. I can’t understand why you won’t see that,” Cillian forced out between gritted teeth.

He’d had the same conversation with him so many times, and still he couldn’t get through to him – like talking to a wall with a shitty attitude. And right now, he was in no mood for it. He felt his skin crawl and his intestines twist and rumble, the fire wanting to consume him inside out. While he was usually in perfect control of himself and his dragon, the dragon now wanted to take control of him. With Carrick acting the way he was, Cillian wasn’t sure he had the nerve to stop the dragon for much longer.

Carrick looked at him, smirking. It took all of Cillian’s strength to keep from hurtling the brass knuckles right at his smug face. He was so much like his father – blind to change and ignorant to progress or any worldview other than his own. It was hard to imagine that they were brothers at all, though looking at him was like looking at a younger version of himself. The eyes were the same emerald, and his nose was just as straight and regal, his cheekbones high and jaw strong. So similar, yet completely different.

“I don’t understand your constant need to conform to the ages. We are dragons, brother. We
make
the ages. The present will be whatever we want it to be. If we rise up and take what is ours, there isn’t a force strong enough to stop us.”

For the first time in many years, Cillian saw a spark in his brother’s eye. A glaring, worrying look that made him want to knock some sense into him. Passion without direction was a dangerous thing, but passion directed at things unwise and unkind was a nightmare in the making. The man in him rebelled at the very thought that Carrick was proposing, but his dragon…

His dragon listened. They were primal beasts after all, built to rule, to conquer and to guard. Those things had become more and more scarce now. No wonder a dragon would feel the pull for a darker time, a time when things were built with the dragon, not mankind in mind.

“They’d slaughter us,” Cillian said, his voice low, fighting against the dragon.

It seemed like an impossible battle, being torn between his need to find Ruby, his desire to make his brother understand that the path he was on could lead to nothing but destruction and staying in control when his dragon thought best to take it from him.

“Who are
they
?” Carrick asked, emptying the glass with one gulp.

He set it down, sneering at Cillian. A line of smoke spewed from his nostrils, wafting up in a thin pillar. It somehow gave the madness in his eyes more weight.

“The shifters would join us, not that we need them. Wolves, bears, lions… They could all be wiped out by a single dragon. It was only because they honored us as stronger than they that we ever kept them around at all. Now, I think our forefathers should have destroyed them a long time ago. I can’t believe we’ve sunken so low – dealing with them, talking to them. Befriending them. Disgusting.”