Danburn: The English Dragon ― Erotic Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance (6 page)

The man was still screaming when the Feds took him away. Noah stood beside him as Danburn answered all the questions the Feds had for him. Yes, he had spoken to the man about dragons. No, he had no idea where he might have gotten the information. Yes, he had agreed with him to humor him. The slightly unstable, Danburn pointed out, were prone to violence, and he was doing his best to avoid that.

After they were done, the Feds were taking the man away with his arms tied behind him, he and Noah pulled out their phones and began making the necessary calls. First and foremost, they had to get these houses up to standards, as well as getting the workers, the ones hired by Conrad, his sister, and his firm, off the property.

After that, he decided he’d had enough excitement for one day and headed home. But he made several stops before getting there. He had a woman to woo and make happy. He thought flowers and chocolate were a good beginning.

Chapter
5

Kendrick walked around the big stone castle and marveled at the sheer size of it. Some of the walls seemed to blend right into the mountain they were near, and she wondered if any hidden openings existed that would lead her to the middle of the mountain, or to the sublevels of the house itself. She put her hand on the wall, feeling its coolness, just as someone cleared their throat behind her. Turning, she looked at Danburn and then back at the wall.

“Are you enjoying your walk?” She moved to the other side of the garden that seemed as much a part of the castle as did the mountain itself. “Pierce said that he’d been called away and asked if I’d come out and answer your questions. He’s going to be a while. One of the workers cut his hand and requires stitches.”

“It’s so cold here. The stone is as cold as ice.” She hadn’t meant to speak to him, but now that she had, she decided that he might have more information than the doctor had. “The mountain, Pierce said, rose from the ground to create the castle for you. What did he mean by that?”

“Just that. When I decided to have a home built here, the land and all the surrounding area around it was flat. It had also been over-farmed. There had been, at one time, sheep running here, but they too were dying, due to the lack of vegetation. So I made a bargain with the grounds.” She stared at him. It was a fanciful story, but completely untrue. She asked him what the bargain had been. “That I would forever leave a part of me behind when I swam in the waterways, keep the hearths burning, and make sure there were people, which the land needs to survive, living peacefully with her. She was ready to agree by then, and we have lived well together since. Living in harmony here between the mountain and the lake.”

“I see.” Kendrick ran her hand over the beautiful pinkish stone that was a part of this side of the castle. “This is a different stone than on the other side. I guess one can’t expect the earth to match everything up.”

“On the contrary, she did. The reason that the stone here is a darker hue than the other side is because the dirt well below this was clay. It blended well within the stone here, and gave some of the earth below the opportunity to feel the sun on it again. Long before I built this castle, as I said, it was a dying earth.” He moved up beside her, and she could feel the heat of his body with hers. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe about you.” She moved away, one of the hardest things she’d ever done. “I talked to the doctor about my sister today. He said that she’s doing well and should be ready to leave the hospital in a few days.”

“She’ll not come here, however. I think he told you that.” Kendrick nodded. She really didn’t want her sister here either, but there wasn’t any point in explaining that to him. “She has men trying to murder her, and I would rather her be someplace that is safe for all of us. No one will find her where we put her, and she will continue to have good care as long as she does what she’s told.”

“She won’t. But then I’m sure you already figured that out. Noah told me that he’d had me investigated. As well as Louisa.” Danburn nodded but said nothing as he leaned against the stone. “I have this thing I can do. You won’t have known about it when you did your research. And the only reason I’m telling you now is I don’t want you to think I’ve harmed Noah.”

“He told me that he cannot lie to you. It bothers him a great deal. Not that he would want to lie to you, but he is pressured somewhat to tell you the truth no matter how much it pains him.” Kendrick leaned down to smell a small blossom. “You never pick the things here, do you? You only make note of them, then move on. Why is that?”

“If I were to pick it or even to damage it, the next person to come by wouldn’t be able to enjoy what I have. It’s a give and take thing for me. They give me pleasure and I give them the option of continuing. I mean, they could still die from any number of things, but this way, I’ve left it, in my opinion, better than most would have.” He told her that was lovely of her. “No, it’s just that I don’t have a lot of pleasures in my life. Smelling a flower or two and leaving it behind so that I might come back to see it again is all I have.”

“Tell me of this thing you can do so that he can’t lie to you. Please?” She would have told him anyway, but the “please” helped her feel better about it. “You said that it was a thing you can do. Have you always been able to do that?”

“No. Just since…my mother, she tried to kill me when I was younger. The bullets were removed, of course, but while they were there, in my head, they touched off some things that hadn’t been there before. Like the ability to have people not lie to me, for one.” He asked her what else there was. “I can see things. With a touch I can see what its journey has been since its creation. Not people, just things. Loose change, a blanket left behind. Sometimes I can see the owner of an object, but not much more than that.”

“And the stone you touched, could you see its journey too?” She told him that the stone did not want her to see. “I don’t understand you. You mean things can block you?”

“Sort of. The stone is large, bigger than I am. Its collective thoughts, I guess you can call it, are stronger than me. I think I could force my way in, see what I want, but I won’t. If it’s not mine for the taking, then I move on.” She looked at Danburn and wondered when he’d moved so close to her. “I think she doesn’t want me to see for fear of how I will react.”

“And if she gives you permission now, would you look?” His voice, not like the man, was soft, gentle, and she wanted to wrap herself in it. But he’d hurt her once today, and she didn’t want to feel that helpless and pain filled again. “Touch the wall now, Kendrick, and let it show you that I did not lie to you about how it came to be.”

“I’m not sure I want to know.” He nodded but took her hand in his. Following him to the wall, she laid her hand on the cool stone when he put it there, and closed her eyes. The warmth started first. Then the movement of time going backward made her slightly dizzy, and she nearly pulled away when it stopped.

“When I came here, as I said, the ground was dying. Can you see it?” She could, and answered Danburn’s whispered question. “I have power, magic if you will, that can move mountains. I can create winds and water where none was before. I can also talk to the earth when she lets me. I am a dragon of the earth. My forefathers, all of them, once walked this land and lived with the humans. But no more. We hide in our skins so we may live and help the land that we once called home.”

The earth seemed to appear before her. It was as he had said, dead. The grasses were brown, the trees, what few there were of them, were only sticks in the ground, long since having given up their leaves, their roots as dead as they were. Some small sheep were roaming, but Kendrick had a feeling that they had not seen a human for years, and that their only reason for survival was that the earth had needed them as much as they did her. Then a man, the same man standing close enough to her that she could hear his heart beating, sat down on the dead grounds and dug his hands into the earth. The ground seemed to grow around him until only his head was showing.

They sat that way, the earth and the man, until suddenly the ground below him began to quake. Grasses moved and began to turn green, roots digging deeper into the earth as she watched them. The trees, too, shifted in the dirt that held him until they were nearer to him. Then great stones began to rise up from the ground…larger than the man, larger than any building that she’d ever seen.

“The stones were there, hidden deep, the foundation that she had her life begin on. As it shifted and became something that I needed, the ground beneath turned and became fresh. Roots that had long been dormant rose up now and faced the sun with renewed life. As the land began to take on life, so did the mountain that rose up for me.” The stone shifted, the one she touched now began to form rooms within its belly. Windows opened, stairs began to build from every floor above it to the ground below. Smaller stones began to move, and window seats appeared. Pools in several rooms were heated with the mountain’s water, pure and clean. “The water is forever warmed to the perfect temperature. Clean, as it runs through the mountain, purifying it as it enters each room. See the fireplace? Its hearth and walls are made of the strongest rock, and they will hold heat and warmth long after the fire burns down and only cinders remain. No man can enter here or any of the rooms without permission. Either from me or the wall itself.”

She felt his breath on her neck, his lips moving over her cheek as he pressed his face to hers. Kendrick wanted to turn to him, feel his mouth over hers, his body pressed against hers again. But she was also afraid of him. Not the man, but his words that could cut her again, and this time she knew that she would bleed from a wound that would not heal.

The mountain paused in its movement, seeming to take a breath as the grounds around it shifted again. A large hole opened, its depth so deep that she was sure that the castle and mountain could have hidden inside of it. Stairs led up from it at one point, reaching to the castle below the earth and connecting somehow, she knew, to the levels below the now completely formed and filling lake.

As she watched, water began to cascade into it, from all sides and even the floor. The stone of it, the bottom of the now filling lake, was as smooth as the stone of the castle, and no less beautiful. When the waters had filled in, the plant life surrounding it began to grow, taking on a life that had never been there before.

“Look at me, Kendrick. The man there, look at me and see what I truly am.”

She didn’t want to. She knew that once she saw him, really saw him for what he was, she’d never be able to leave here. Not him or the castle. When he told her again, begged her to turn and look at him, she felt her body move, the earth beneath her rejoicing in what she was about to see.

~~~

Danburn held her body to his. Sheltered her, as the mountain did him, in the event it proved too much for her. The castle, the mountain, and the water all told him to do this for her, to give her a gift that no one had ever wanted or needed before. As her body turned in their combined dreams, Danburn felt his beast roar out.

He knew what he looked like when she turned. His great dragon had emerged when the earth began to move for him. He stood there, proudly now, showing this woman that he was a dragon of worth. A monster only in the hearts and fears of those who would harm her.

His mane was full of thorns, down his back from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. Wings spread now, wide and beautiful, their story there for anyone to see should they want. His scales, a silver color under battle mode, now shone brightly with the magic around him, taking on the colors and hues of every life they touched. It had served him well over the years, but now only shone for the woman who was touching his mind.

The art of his life covered every inch of his wings, as well as his heart was. Each battle was represented there, each time he’d taken a life. Some of them yet moved, the memory of them still fresh to him, showing the battle that he’d fought in, and the deaths of those that had fought beside him. Then when he lowered his body to the ground, the belly of his dragon heated up to do what was needed. He looked at Kendrick to see her face when the fire left his throat to still the stone where it lay, the heat of it making the ground where he lay with her warm so she would always be warm.

Before he could guess her intentions, she pulled from the wall and put her hands on his chest. He knew she felt his heart. The one beating hard because she’d touched him. When she licked her lips, running her tongue over their fullness, Danburn leaned in to kiss her.

The kiss was gentle, their bodies seeming to melt into one. As he brought her closer to him, his hands holding her tightly to him, Danburn felt something that he’d never felt before…a connection to another person on a level that he’d only felt with the earth. Lifting her up in his arms, he turned her to the castle again and felt her wrap around him.

“I cannot wait,” he told her when he pulled his mouth free. “I need to bury myself within you.”

Nodding, she began to tear at his clothing. His tie was jerked from the buttons on his shirt, his jacket was pulled down over his arms and dropped where it lay. Her own clothing suffered as much. Danburn ripped open the blouse she had on. Kendrick lifted up the bra that seemed sexy from the moment he saw it, and he pulled her breast into his mouth. Tugging at her pants, he nearly cried out when they caught. Finally he simply tore them from her, no longer caring about their fabric.

“Hurry.” He grinned at her urgency. He too felt it, the need to mate, to become one. When his pants gave him fits, he pulled a little of his beast and the pants fell away in shreds. His feet were now bare of shoes and socks as he held her naked body close to his.

“I want to see you.” Her head shook and he pulled her legs from behind him. “I must see you in all your glory. We, my dragon and I, we need it.”

“I’m not that special.” But he had her standing before him now, her body beautifully bare. “You’re so big.”

He looked down his own body and saw himself as she might. His cock was thick and hard, straining from his body with pre-cum at the tip. His chest was wide, devoid of hair, and his nipples, like hers, were hard. Danburn wanted to taste every part of her, drink from her nectar, and hear her scream out his name. But he needed to be inside of her more than he needed to satisfy his need of a drink.