Possessed by a Dark Warrior (20 page)

Gods, he couldn’t let them control him. He had to remain objective about everything, including the female. If he allowed his instincts to rule him, he might walk right into a trap or march straight to his death.

Or worse.

He might allow her to use the sword to destroy half of Hell.

He wouldn’t be the first male duped into committing atrocious acts by his fated female, blinded by his primal instincts, controlled by them and an overwhelming need to please her at any cost.

He closed his eyes and bent his head, focused on his breathing and recited his mission in his mind, until it cleared and the female was nothing more than an objective again. He would speak with her, somehow, and if she were a threat to the realm and everyone in it, he would eliminate her as ordered.

Bleu leaned his right side against the black boulder, his armour allowing him to blend in to his surroundings in the low light. The slats covering the lower half of his face caused his warm breath to bounce back at him and his horned helmet trapped heat. He ached to remove his helmet but blending in to the landscape to avoid detection was more important than how hot and sweaty it made him.

How stifling it was as he tried to breathe.

He couldn’t breathe.

Fuck, what was he doing?

He looked across the dead valley to the castle, felt that question right to the pit of his soul. What had possessed him to come here alone and made him believe that he could speak with the female?

She was his mate, but she was his mission first and foremost. He couldn’t allow his instincts as her fated male to corrupt him or sway him from that mission. They were only instincts. He felt nothing for her, not a single drop of emotion. She was a mission.

A shadow loomed out of the gloom, a flash of white and violet, and his breath caught in the back of his bruised throat as he tipped his head back and watched the dragon rush straight overhead.

Enormous wings beat the hot air, sending it thundering down the mountainside and stirring an avalanche of dust that swept past him. He didn’t notice it as he watched the dragon, unable to take his eyes off it.

Off her.

Those primal instincts fired, told him that the beast flying away from him, swaying at an angle in the air as she spread her wings wide and skimmed the side of the mountain range, following it back towards the castle, was his mate.

His ki’ara.

And, holy fuck, she stole his breath away.

His gaze followed her as she banked around, her long tail curving to assist her in the turn and white wings lazily beating the air, making it look as if flying was an effortless task. Her white horns almost brushed the violet scales of her neck as she twisted her head, tipped it back at the same time as she flapped her wings, and his heart gave a hard thump as she barely missed the castle’s spires.

She turned, swooped lower and then rose higher on a single beat of her wings, heading towards his end of the valley. Her head barely moved as she looked around, large eyes taking everything in. Her talons flexed and she tucked her front legs up as she gained height, pulling them close to her white chest.

He lost himself in watching her. Majestic. Beautiful. He had never seen those two qualities in dragons, not as many in Hell did, but he saw them in her.

Huge violet eyes dropped.

Landed right on him.

The thought that it was impossible she had seen him against the black rock when his armour covered all but his eyes didn’t even have time to form in his mind before strange heat flooded him followed by a surge of images, pulled straight from his dreams of her.

A disjointed vision of kissing her, wrapping her up in his arms as he possessed her.

Claimed her.

The mountain shook as she landed hard on the slope below him. She slammed her paws into it, sharp dark violet talons sinking straight into the rock as she clawed her way up the steep incline at speed.

Coming straight at him.

She snapped and snarled, flashing white fangs each as long as his arms.

Bleu held his ground, his years as a soldier combining with his primal instincts to tell him that she didn’t mean him any harm.

She meant to drive him away.

It wasn’t going to happen.

He had come here to speak with her, and he was going to do just that.

“Return the sword,” he said in the dragon tongue and rose onto his feet, moving slowly so he didn’t spook her.

She growled and lunged at him, snapped her jaws together just inches from his face, close enough that his portal flickered over his armour, survival instinct bringing it to the fore without him even thinking about using it.

He exhaled slowly, calming himself again.

She snarled, her reptilian jowls rippling with the odd sound, her fangs mere feet from him and filling his vision. She inched closer and the fierce points of her teeth parted enough that she could easily snap them closed over him before he could escape.

But she didn’t.

She remained there, growling so loud that it was deafening. Still trying to scare him away. Not serious about fighting him. Why?

In this form, she could easily crush him. She could eat him whole. It didn’t make any sense, but he would roll with it. He didn’t mind being right and coming away from their meeting with his life.

As casually as he could manage given the proximity of her fangs, he leaned his right hip against the boulder and issued a mental command to his armour. The slats covering his face shifted back, sliding under each other until they had cleared his cheeks and his helmet deconstructed itself, the dragon-like horns shrinking and scales rippling down to join the rest of his armour.

The female edged back, enormous eyes following the transformation. Her elliptical pupils narrowed and she canted her head to one side a fraction of a degree before she jerked it back straight and growled at him again. He had the impression he had just been blamed for something.

Distracting her?

If it would distract her enough to get her to shift into her mortal form, he would strip naked.

His body got the wrong idea about that, blood rushing south. He gritted his teeth and focused on her and his mission. She was just a mission to him. His head didn’t seem to be listening to him, because it started throwing flashbacks of his dreams at him, hot and sweaty visions of them tangled together, naked and lost in passion.

Bleu closed his eyes, blew out his breath as he sought some balance again, reciting his mission orders and the reason he was here to purge the images from his rebellious mind.

Or was that his heart?

It would be typical of the damned thing to slip its leash now, when it was imperative that he remained detached and in control.

He opened his eyes, settling them straight on hers, the source of his problem and his damned objective in this mission. She jerked back and flashed fangs at him, snarling low in her throat.

She didn’t like it when he pinned blame on her.

Well, it was her fault for distracting him with nothing more than her presence.

Her sweet proximity.

It was playing havoc with him.

He barely resisted the urge to fold his arms across his chest, catching himself at the last second. He was here to speak with her and adopting a threatening pose was a sure-fire way of stopping that from happening. She had to feel in control.

Her eyes followed his right hand as he lifted it and touched the left side of his throat, the scales of his armour cool beneath his fingertips. The scars on it tingled, a reminder of what she could do in her mortal form when she felt cornered. He didn’t want to imagine what she might do if she felt cornered when in her dragon one.

Her eyes narrowed and she backed off, even glanced away from him. Guilty? Did she feel bad about what she had done?

He stared at her, letting that sink in, studying her and seeing in her behaviour that she did feel guilty. It strengthened his hope that he had the wrong dragon, because if she had slaughtered thousands of elves as the kingdom believed, she wouldn’t have felt a damn thing about clawing one and leaving him scarred.

“If you return the sword and come with me, there is a chance I can convince my prince to be lenient on you,” he said in her tongue and wrestled with the urge to say more, to somehow make her come with him and leave this valley of death behind her.

And gods, it had nothing to do with fulfilling his damned mission.

She shifted back right before his eyes, transforming into a female who robbed him of his breath, had stolen it the first time he had set eyes on her and every time after that. Silky hair fell to just below her shoulders, deep violet at its roots but pure snow white where it brushed her chest. He curled his fingers into fists, fighting the desire that surged through him and his need to drop his gaze to her bare body and take in every perfect inch of her.

Sweet gods, she was perfect.

Despite his efforts and keeping his eyes locked on her face, carnal hunger flooded him. His ears flared back against the sides of his head and his vision sharpened, a response to the desire now rushing through him like a tidal wave, obliterating all sensible thought, destroying everything in its path until his entire body came alive with the need to have her. His fangs lengthened and he itched with a need to reach out, grab her slender wrist and pull her into his arms.

He needed to kiss her until she melted against him, moaning his name as he burned her resistance away.

No good could come of that.

Bleu slowly clawed back his sanity and closed his eyes, shutting her out as he tried to piece himself back together and remember his place.

And hers.

Until she had proven that she hadn’t stolen the sword, she was his enemy and he had to bring her to justice for her crimes.

It was his mission. His purpose.

He opened his eyes and stared at her, finding her still watching him, her violet-to-white gaze steady. So why couldn’t he bring himself to fight her and take her into custody?

Why the hell was he bent on being diplomatic when he had always sucked at diplomacy? He had been born to find peace through battle, not through words. He wasn’t Loren.

Her eyes narrowed on him, ran down the length of him and set his body on fire again. Gods damn her. He wanted to growl whenever she looked at him like that, had to fight to restrain himself when all he ached to do was step into her, draw her flush against the body she was checking out, and show her just what his armour concealed, pressing every hard inch of him into her.

He bit out a curse in the elf tongue instead and reeled that hunger in, and cursed every mated male he knew while he was at it. Suddenly, he pitied the poor bastards. When he had watched them fawning over their fated one, acting like pricks, he had thought them ridiculous, lacking strength and self-control.

He had been convinced they had allowed the pull of their mate to overcome them.

He was painfully aware now that it hadn’t been the case.

There was no fighting this.

There was only clawing together enough control to keep himself sane and stop himself from acting on every primal instinct that screamed at him to take his female into his arms and bend her to his will.

Clothes moulded over her body, violet leather covering her long legs and a creamy-white corset covering her torso, and matching pale bands closing over her forearms. The hunger he felt abated enough that he could think straight again, and part of him wanted to thank her for having the decency to put him out of his misery by covering herself.

Bleu stared at her, taking her in, recalling all their past meetings and how she had looked then, and comparing it to how she appeared now. At the back of his mind, the sane part of him constantly chanted that she was the enemy of his people, the target of his mission. He should be seizing her now, while he had the chance, and forcing her to return the sword.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t fight her.

He never had been able to do it. Not from the day he had met her. Not even when she had lashed out and clawed him.

He couldn’t raise a hand to her in violence.

Not when every fibre of him beat with a need to lift that hand and brush it across her pale cheek as he asked her the question he really desired to voice—was she unwell?

Darkness arced beneath her striking eyes and her skin was deathly pale, ashen almost, and she was thinner than he recalled, ravaged by either a sickness of the body or the mind.

Was his female ill?

The thought that she might be, that she might be taken from him, almost struck him down.

Bleu started to lift his hand. Her eyes dropped to it and she bared her teeth at him. He stilled.

“Will you do as I ask?” he said, denying his burning need to know what had happened to her. He could find that out if he convinced her to bring him the sword and they left the valley together.

“No.” Her voice was pure light even though she bit the word out in a harsh tone. It washed over his soul like rays of sunlight chasing over a hillside meadow, bathing it in warmth. Stupid instincts. He shut them down. She scowled at him. “Leave.”

Bleu shook his head. “Is it true that your brother is the one responsible for stealing the sword and massacring my kin?”

Her violet-to-white eyes widened.

Her pulse accelerated in his ears.

“Leave,” she said, but this time her voice trembled and he could sense the fear running through her.

She wasn’t afraid of him.

She feared her brother, just as the dragons in the village did.

“You must leave,” she snapped and moved closer, her eyes gaining a desperate and wild edge as they darted between his. “
Leave
.”

“No. If you are not the one responsible… you have my word that I will speak with my prince on your behalf if you return the sword. I will see to it that the one who is responsible is brought to justice and your name is cleared.” He couldn’t stop himself from edging closer, the need to be near her seizing hold of him as he felt her fear increasing.

He needed to soothe her.

She glanced back over her shoulder, her heart pounding in his ears now.