Eternal Mates 7 - Taken by a Dragon (16 page)

He lowered his hips and she brought him to her, guiding the tip down to her sheath.

He froze and pulled away, his expression fierce and icy, and his lips flattening into a thin line.

Cold swept through her as he sat back and she sat up and covered herself with her arms, unsure what she had done wrong.

Frustration etched deep lines on his handsome face. “Someone comes.”

Relief filled her for a split-second before what he had said sank in.

Someone was coming.

And she was naked.

Anais leaped to her feet and Loke groaned, drawing her gaze back to him. His pained expression spoke to her, telling her that he wasn’t happy that they had been interrupted. She was plenty pissed about it too and she was going to make sure whoever was coming knew it.

She tugged her trousers on and quickly donned her bra, making sure she was covered before their intruder landed.

She presumed it was a dragon anyway. She hadn’t really thought to ask.

Loke gripped the black rough wall of the cave and pulled himself onto his feet, and she paused and frowned at him. Someone had been pretending to be in better shape than they really were. She would have words with him about that later. The last thing she wanted was Loke hurting himself.

“I am fine.” He gave her a look that warned her to hold her tongue and his blue leather trousers materialised on his legs.

If fine was another way of him saying wobbly and paling, she might have agreed with him.

“You need to rest.” She took hold of his arm and he shot her another look, this one dark with passion and hunger, fanning the desire that still burned within her.

He opened his mouth to answer her and quickly turned away, giving her his back and coming to face the mouth of the cave. He caught her hip and shoved her behind him, and she peered around him, wanting to see who had come to visit and fearing it would be Zephyr or the irritating red female dragon.

It was neither of them.

An incredible violet dragon landed on the ledge.

Anais stared at it, stunned by its colouring. She hadn’t realised that dragons could come in twin colours. The violet scales gave way to white down the front of its throat and its chest. It flapped enormous wings that were two-tone too, with purple scales over the muscles and bones, but white membranes, and settled them against its back.

She remained behind Loke as the dragon transformed.

Into a beautiful woman with shoulder-length violet-to-white hair and the most amazing eyes Anais had ever seen. Her irises were deep purple around the outside, but white around her pupils.

A very naked beautiful woman.

One who Loke clearly knew as he released Anais and walked towards her, speaking to the woman in their native tongue.

Anais folded her arms across her chest and remained where she was, refusing to move, even when Loke looked back at her. He frowned and canted his head, a flicker of confusion in his eyes as she glared at him. How many beautiful female dragons did he know?

Had he slept with this one?

They seemed close as Loke gestured towards the fire, smiling at the woman, and she finally made an effort to dress. Unlike the redheaded bitch in the village, this one covered herself in both violet leather trousers and a white top.

It didn’t change how Anais felt about her.

She wanted the woman gone.

Damn, didn’t that make her sound and feel like a jealous little bitch?

Loke wasn’t hers. They barely knew each other, no matter how differently she felt on that front. She hadn’t known him for months or years, and definitely not for centuries, but she felt as if she had.

She felt as if she had always known him.

But she hadn’t.

She looked back at the beautiful woman and Loke as they approached. How long had the woman known him? Had they been lovers?

Anais dragged her gaze away from them and tried to quieten that vicious voice, stopping it from raising questions that only hurt her. She went to the fire and sat on the furs near it, staring at it and paying no attention to Loke or the female.

Or how her heart caught fire in her chest and felt as if it was burning to ashes.

She felt Loke’s gaze on her but couldn’t bring herself to look at him as her thoughts weighed her down. Just minutes ago, she had been filled with light and something akin to happiness, and now she had plunged into darkness and it was cold, chilling her to the marrow.

She wrapped her arms around herself, drew her knees up to her chest, and kept her eyes on the fire as the reason for her jealousy dawned on her.

She was falling in love with a dragon.

L
oke wasn’t sure what was wrong with Anais or why her mood had changed so abruptly, but he wanted to know. He kept glancing at her, but she refused to look at him, her eyes constantly fixed on the fire in the middle of his cave, a distant and unfocused quality to them. Was she unwell? Her cheeks were flushed, but he had thought it was from their lovemaking. Perhaps he was wrong and she had caught a fever.

The thought of his little mortal ailing made ice form in his veins and he barely held himself back as desire to go to her where she sat on the pile of furs and demand to know whether she was sick rushed through him. Only his other desire to keep his attraction to her from Taryn kept him in place near the female dragon.

He willed Anais to at least look at him and let him know she was well without words but her eyes didn’t leave the flames.

Taryn glanced down at Anais too, an inquisitive edge to her violet-to-white gaze that had him drawing his focus away from Anais in order to protect her from the dragon’s curiosity. It had been a while since Taryn had visited him, and she was much changed from the last time they had seen each other. There were dark arcs beneath Taryn’s eyes and she was far thinner, a greyness to her skin that worried him.

“What happened?” he said in the dragon tongue and she drew her eyes away from Anais and fixed him with the same curious look.

“She is pretty.”

“She is mortal,” he countered and Taryn’s eyes grew concerned. “I took her from a battle in the Third Realm.”

“A spoil of war? That isn’t like you, Loke.”

He shook his head. “I saw her future and I wanted to change it.”

He wasn’t sure he had changed it though. He still kept seeing her die.

Loke pushed his own problems out of his mind and focused on his old friend. “What happened, Taryn? I have not seen you in years and now you show up looking as you do.”

She diverted her gaze off to her left and the fire there and rubbed her arms, a faint but uneasy smile on her lips. “Slavers caught me… I was repeatedly sold on the black market.”

Fury raced through his veins, making him burn with a need to track down the vile monsters who had captured and sold her into slavery and butcher them all.

He closed the gap between them and took hold of her shoulders, and she slowly lifted her eyes to meet his. Pain shone in them, terror that he struggled to comprehend. Slavers rarely caught dragons. When they did, they were sold for a high price as an exotic slave. He had heard horror stories about the things dragons in captivity were forced to do by their masters, but they had only been stories. No dragon had ever escaped the slavers or their master. Those who were taken never returned.

But Taryn had.

Somehow, she had survived everything and had returned. Scarred and broken. A piece of herself dead and gone. He could see it in her eyes as she looked at him.

Her life had been difficult enough before she had been taken by slavers.

He smoothed his palm across her pale cheek and wished she had better fortune, a better life than the one she had been born into and forced to endure.

She shied away from his touch, slipping beyond his reach as she stepped back, gaining some distance from him. He sighed and then frowned as he felt Anais’s gaze boring into his back and smelled the dark taint of anger in her scent.

He looked over his shoulder at her, wanting to see why she was upset with him, but she pinned her gaze back on the fire and refused to look at him.

“The female is jealous,” Taryn whispered in the dragon tongue. “She is more than a ward to you, is she not, Loke?”

He forced his eyes away from Anais and looked at Taryn. Her hard expression demanded an answer from him. He had wanted to avoid such questions, because he wasn’t sure how she would react to the news he had developed feelings for a mortal and one under his protection. He didn’t want her thinking less of him, placing him with the other males who took spoils of war. He needed her to understand that it had never been his intention to fall for the little Amazon.

But fall for her he had, and he had fallen hard.

He nodded but left it at that as he tried to pull her attention back to herself and away from his private life. “Are you running from slavers?”

Taryn’s expression shifted, turning troubled again. “No.”

But she was on the run from someone. There was fear in the depths of her eyes and lacing her scent. She was afraid of whoever was after her. If it wasn’t slavers, who was it? Who had Taryn running scared?

He wanted to know.

“Who then, Taryn?”

She heaved a sigh and looked down at her bare feet. “He is no one… of no consequence to you.”

But he was someone. This unknown male had rattled Taryn, so much so that she clearly didn’t even feel safe here in the realm of dragons. She feared the male would find her.

Loke growled and couldn’t suppress his need to know what awaited Taryn. It was born from a need to protect her, one that had run deep in him for thousands of years. He had always tried to shield her, because she had always felt like a sister to him, even when she already had a brother.

He closed the distance between them with a single stride, caught her chin before she could protest and raised her eyes up to meet his. He stared hard into them and tapped into his magic, using it to force a vision. Sharp pain pierced his skull and his eyes ached, but he pushed through it all, weathering it until his magic triggered his natural ability of foresight.

Darkness swirled, filling the cave and blotting everything out, and then abated, revealing a green land. He lifted his eyes and saw Taryn laying on the grass, bloodied and beaten, her violet-to-white hair spilling around her and stained crimson in places. Three males stood in the distance, dressed in black skin-tight armour.

He snarled at them but they didn’t respond. They remained with their purple eyes narrowed on Taryn.

A male stepped past Loke, coming to loom over her broken form. His pointed ears flared back through overlong blue-black hair and his violet eyes fixed on Taryn, merciless and cold as he stared down at her. His fingers flexed around the shaft of a black spear and he raised it.

Loke launched himself at the male on instinct, even when he knew he couldn’t affect the outcome of the vision. He ghosted through the male and the darkness closed in again, evaporating a heartbeat later to reveal the black mountains of the dragon realm and the deep grey sky.

Taryn flew through it, her wings beating heavily, rhythmically. She swooped and spread those wings, a blaze of violet across the tops of the trees before she gave another hard beat and launched upwards to somersault in the air. A carefree and joy-filled cry left her, speaking to him of her happiness.

The inky black closed in on him once more and when it parted, he was standing in the middle of the cave and staring down into Taryn’s eyes.

“What did you see?” Those words were quiet and edged with fear and trepidation.

He lowered his hand from her face. “Your future is undecided. One path is dark… the other light. Something you are destined to do will cause one or the other to happen. You must be careful and choose your steps wisely, Taryn.”

She nodded. “I will keep running. I must speak with my brother. Where is he?”

Loke shook his head and she faltered, the certainty that had been in her eyes fading as she looked up at him, replaced with concern.

“Do not.” The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, but he refused to send her marching into her grave. If he had to hurt her to keep her from dying, he would do it. Her brother meant the world to her, but she was blinded by her love for him, and Loke feared it would get her killed one day. “Stay away from him, Taryn. Your brother has grown more dangerous. His lust for power has tainted him. Please? I fear that if you go to him, the first glimpse of your future I saw will be the one that comes to pass. You will die.”

Her cheeks paled and her dark violet eyebrows furrowed as she went to shake her head, but only managed to move it mere millimetres. “I must see him. He is my brother.”

Loke closed his eyes and sighed. The bond between sibling dragons was always strong, but Taryn’s bond with Tenak was stronger than usual because he was her twin. It was rare among dragons. Loke hadn’t heard of twins being born since Taryn and her brother, and that had happened thousands of years ago.

“Loke?” Taryn whispered and he sensed her need for him to look at her and reassure her.

He forced a smile and opened his eyes, fixing them straight on hers. He wanted to lie and say something that would lighten her heart and destroy her fears, but the words wouldn’t line up on his tongue. Others replaced them, and he couldn’t hold them back.

“Be careful.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek and shook his head as he looked down into her eyes, his heart aching at the thought of her being swallowed by the madness and violence that surrounded her brother. “Tenak is worse… the tales coming from where he resides say that he is insane. He kills any who draw too close to him. What if he does not recognise you, Taryn? What if he turns his vile craving for violence towards you?”

Taryn lowered her head, drew in a deep breath, and then lifted her chin and pinned him with eyes that were calm and soft, filled with hope and light. No trace of fear.

“I still must see him.” She smiled softly and he realised that there was no changing her mind. She was set on going to her brother and risking her life. “He needs me, Loke.”