Night's Awakening (10 page)

“I’d ask how.”

“And if I said I couldna tell you.”

“I’d ask if that was why all of you are so desperate for your privacy.”

He gave a single nod and glanced at Con, who was about to reach the opening. “Con willna be happy that you’re piecing it together.”

“Con doesn’t seem happy about much.”

“Come,” Guy said as they left the drawings behind.

Once Elena had her feet back on the ground, she let out a laugh as she sank onto a boulder. The men turned to look at her with expressions of worry, amusement, and unease.

The more she looked at them, the harder she laughed. Every time she’d try to stop, she’d look at them and start laughing again. Now Guy and Con stood together with arms crossed, sharing an expression of exasperation while Rhys was smiling.

Finally Elena was able to pull it together. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and looked through the hole. “I feared that so very much. Now that it’s over, I can’t believe I was so scared.”

“Your boss died,” Con reminded her. “You were alone in a situation you didna know how to manage. From all Rhys and Guy told me, you handled yourself as well as could be expected.”

“Careful, you might actually start to like me,” she teased.

Guy’s frown grew, and he took a step that put him between her and Con. Rhys was instantly on alert. He dropped the rope he’d been rolling and waited.

“It was a joke, Guy,” she said.

But he didn’t respond.

Elena couldn’t see their faces, not even when she leaned to the side, but it was obvious something was going on.

“There’s entirely too much damned testosterone around here. Knock it off, you three,” she demanded.

Guy turned to face her. The fury she saw etched on his face instantly turned to desire. She had that second of warning before he hauled her up against his body and kissed her.

Deeply. Fully.

Completely.

They were both breathing heavy when he ended the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. Elena clung to him, her body shaking with need as he held her off the floor so as not to hurt her ankle.

“Guy,” Con said menacingly.

Elena moved her gaze to Con. “Leave him alone.”

Guy squeezed her as Rhys said something beneath his breath and turned away.

Con’s gaze narrowed on her. “You’d defend him?”

“To you. To anyone. Yes.”

“Interesting,” Con said, and turned on his heel to fade into the darkness.

Guy slowly set her on her feet. “I’m afraid you’re going to learn all the secrets you want to know.”

“Is that so bad?” she asked as a shiver of dread raced down her spine.

“For me, it is.”

Chapter Eleven

“I already know you’re immortal.”

Elena’s words stopped Guy cold. He didn’t bother to look at Rhys, who had frozen in place as well. Guy clipped the length of rope onto Elena’s belt.

“You’d be wise no’ to inform Con of that bit,” Rhys said.

Elena frowned, her large, sage green eyes filled with concern. “I’m a big girl, Guy. I can handle whatever it is you don’t want me to know.”

He knew she could.
If
she cared for him more.
If
their feelings went deeper than just physical.

Rhys began down the path they had come, but Guy didn’t follow. He looked at Elena and drank in the sight of her. If he returned with her to the mansion, Con would want to talk to her as he had Cassie. Which couldn’t happen.

Then Con would demand to know if Elena loved Guy, which he knew she didn’t. She cared. That, he knew with certainty. By the way she touched him, kissed him. Defended him.

But what Guy truly feared was when Con would ask him how he felt about Elena. It wasn’t a question Guy could answer, because he didn’t know.

What he did know was that he couldn’t get enough of her. If she stayed any longer, he wasn’t sure he could let her go. Ever.

“Guy?” Rhys called.

Guy took one of Elena’s gloved hands in his. “I can take you back to the mansion, where Con might want you to stay even longer. Or I can take you out the way Sloan brought you in.”

“You don’t want me to go back with you?”

Her voice was soft, too soft.

“You know too much, Elena. To know more is to be confined to Dreagan as we are. You have a life out there, a career you’ve worked hard at.”

“Does my mortality have something to do with it?”

He snorted. “Never. I’m thinking of you.”

“I knew what was between us couldn’t last. It felt too good, too right.” She pulled her hand out of his. “If you don’t want me to go back with you, then I won’t.”

“She has to,” Rhys said from beside them. “We all need to get moving. Now!”

That’s when Guy felt the tremor in the mountain. He grabbed Elena’s hand.

“Forget the pain of your foot. We need to cover a lot of ground.”

He heard her wince a couple of times, but she kept up with them as well as she could. Both he and Rhys shortened their strides to aid her.

What took them over three hours to trek going in took just over an hour returning. The cliff held them up only so long as it took Elena to climb on Guy’s back before he could descend down the rope.

Once they were back in the main cavern, he pointed to the corridor that would lead to the outside and the mansion. “Go, Elena. Run as fast as you can, and get inside the house. Doona look back, no matter what you hear or think you’ll see.”

She nodded and was off.

He watched her for a moment before he turned to Rhys. “Was it the Silvers?”

But one look at the massive silver dragons they had bound in the cage showed they were sleeping as soundly and still as they had for millennia.

“Then what?” Rhys asked.

Guy looked around, wondering where the other Dragon Kings were. That’s when realization struck.

“Sod it,” he said as he took off running after Elena.

He exited the cave in time to see the amber dragon land in front of her and tilt back his head with a deafening roar.

“Tristan, dammit,” Rhys said.

Their newest King was still learning what he was, but regardless, the need to protect Elena was welling up inside Guy.

He felt his dragon tattoo move and knew there was only one way to protect Elena, though in the end, he’d lose her forever.

Elena’s foot throbbed so she could barely put any weight on it, but the apprehension she heard and felt in Guy’s voice and touch was enough to get her running out of the cave.

She wanted to know what could have gotten them moving so fast, but all she could think about was how happy she was to be back at the mansion.

It meant more time with Guy. Despite the sense she had that he might not want her around anymore.

Elena had stopped running and was limping—slowly—to the house when she heard something behind her. A gust of wind slammed into her back, and a second later hit her in the front so that it knocked her off her feet and onto her butt.

She winced when the heel of her hand landed on a rock. But every ache and pain faded to nothing as the enormous amber-colored dragon landed in front of her.

There was no time to scream as it lifted its huge head back and let out a roar that made her ears ring. Elena took in the large, stocky body and the scales the color of polished amber.

The dragon’s tail had a stinger on the end that it slammed into the ground. And then its apple green eyes riveted on her.

It took a step toward her. Its front foot had five digits, each with enormous talons that could sever her in half with just a flick.

The dragon flapped its wings and jerked its head up as something flew over Elena.

She looked up to see another muscular dragon latch on to the amber dragon’s back and pull it away from her. Elena couldn’t take her eyes off the new dragon. It was a deep crimson, its scales looking metallic in the sun.

The red scales shaded to a lighter hue on the underside of its neck. The short, powerful limbs of the red dragon were easily besting the amber one.

A mane of spines sprouted from the back of the red’s neck and his wide head. He and the amber dragon seemed to be evenly matched. At least at first, but the red quickly took an advantage.

Someone grasped her arms and helped her to her feet. Elena glanced over to find Rhys staring at the dragons.

“Well, I guess the dragon’s out of the bag,” Rhys said.

Elena made a sound in the back of her throat. “Where is Guy?”

Rhys’s smile was a little sad as he nodded his head toward the dragons. “You were in danger. Guy reacted as anyone would, protecting what’s his.”

“Protect…” Her voice faded away as she looked at the red dragon. “Are you telling me that magnificent red dragon is—?”

“Aye, it’s Guy.”

Elena knew she should be completely freaking out at the moment, but all she could think about was how cool it was to have her lover be able to change into a dragon.

“Guy isn’t going to kill the other one, is he?” Elena asked.

“Nay. The Amber is our newest member. He’s just learning everything. With your arrival, everyone was told to keep out of sight and to make sure no one shifted. I guess it was too much for Tristan.”

“Who is Tristan? How did he become a dragon?” That’s when she remembered Guy telling her something about a Tristan.

“Questions we’d all like answered,” Con said as he came up on her other side.

“Tristan is no’ his real name. He can no’ remember anything, so Guy named him. I’m sorry Tristan charged you. I doona believe he meant you harm.”

Rhys gave a loud snort of disbelief. “Obliviously Guy thought differently. I’ll go break this little fun up.”

Elena took a step back when Rhys took off running and then suddenly changed into a yellow dragon. And true to his word, he broke up the fight between Guy and Tristan quickly.

She turned to Con. “You aren’t angry that I know?”

“I should be,” he said wearily. “The truth is, I’ve seen it coming since Guy brought you into the house. There was something between the two of you even then.”

“It’s physical. That’s what’s between us.”

“Hmm. I wonder if it was just the physical that had you defending him, or why he would attack Tristan to keep you safe.”

Elena turned to look for the crimson dragon that seemed to draw her gaze only to see Guy standing naked in the open field alone.

She took a step toward him, and then another. Another and another. For each one she took, Guy took two until they were standing face-to-face.

“Now you know.”

She nodded and began to reach out to touch him, but drew back, wondering if he’d even want her touch. “In dragon form, you look like the dragon tattooed on your back.”

“That’s because I’m King of the Reds.”

She looked away, an ache beginning in her chest at the dead tone of his voice.

“You wanted me to leave. Was it because you didn’t want me to know your secrets? Or was it because you’d grown tired of me?”

Elena kept her gaze on the grass because she couldn’t bear to look into his eyes and learn that he was tired of her, not after she’d begun to realize her feelings for him.

His finger touched her chin and lifted her face until she was looking at him. He unbuckled her helmet and let it fall to the ground. Then he cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers.

Elation swept through Elena at his kiss. She wanted to delve into the kiss, but he pulled back too suddenly.

“I doona want you to ever leave,” he said. “There is much you doona know about me and about the Kings.”

“And there is much you don’t know about me. I have awful habits, Guy, like switching radio stations constantly until I find a song I like. I can’t stand commercials.”

“I’m as old as time itself,” he said. “I was once a dragon, but was changed when mankind began to roam the earth. I’m, apparently, quite protective of you.”

“Tell me your story. I want to know all of it.”

He nodded and lifted her in his arms as he walked back to the mountain. She didn’t say a word as he took her down several hallway like caves that opened up to a cavern. Inside the cavern was a gigantic cage with silver dragons inside.

Guy set her down and retrieved a pair of jeans for himself before he sat beside her. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes. I want to know everything,” she said, and took his hand.

“Each dragon who ruled their clan was changed. We were able to shift from dragon to human and back again as many times and as often as needed. We were created so that mankind and dragon could exist together.”

Elena looked at the silver dragons and wondered what kind of world that had been. “Did it last long?”

“No’ as long as we’d hoped. Many Kings took humans as their mates.”

“How did that work with the humans being mortal?”

“When love is shared, when the King finds the woman meant for him, they can bind themselves together. The human will stay immortal as long as her King lives.”

Elena’s eyes grew round. “Wow. Children?”

“None were carried to term.”

“How sad. Why do I have a feeling this human-and-King relationship didn’t go well?”

Guy sighed, his lips pressing into a desolate line. “There was one of us, Ulrik, who was about to be bound to a female. Discord had begun throughout the land amongst dragons and humans alike. We couldna find the source. And then the unthinkable happened. Humans began to hunt dragons.”