Breath of Love (6 page)
“C’mon sweetie. Jesus you scared the crap out of us. Are you all right?”
Halie stumbled out of the car and embraced her friend. “Thank you. How the hell did you guys find me so fast?”
Erika smirked and tapped Hallie’s mark gently. “I guess it’s a little bit of a beacon for them. As soon as we figured out you were missing, we called him.”
They wandered around the rear of the car and paused. Hallie kept expecting Kol to pull back and swing at David—kept hoping that’s what he would do—but all Kol did was stare at the man wordlessly. He glanced once at Geva and a smile stretched across his lips, letting her know the pair were likely having a private conversation about what to do with David. The second she took another step toward Kol, his attention shifted entirely and she was in his arms before either could speak. The desperate kiss he gave her took her breath away, leaving her dazed and her heart pounding harder than it had a moment earlier.
“Are you alright?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”
Hallie shook her head, “Not really, no. What are you going to do with him?”
“Geva and I were just debating it, but the little shit won’t shut up.”
Hallie would have hardly referred to David as “little” but next to the two dragons, he definitely didn’t measure up. The bastard had always been a talker, though, and didn’t seem to register how doomed he probably was at the moment. He directed his attention to her, in spite of the grip Geva had on his arms.
“You’ve settled for this uptight pussy, Hallie? What happened? You were always a wild girl. That’s what I loved about you. A survivor. That sense of adventure is so goddamn sexy.” He turned his eyes to Kol’s, grinning as though he had a secret. “Did you know she wasn’t a city girl her whole life? Born in the wilderness, she told me. Out in the middle of BFE in Canada. Had to kill her own meat. But she decided she liked the finer things better.” Kol remained stoic, watching David. He already knew all of Hallie’s darkest secrets. There were no surprises. David’s agitation rose. He looked back at Hallie. “I can still give you that, baby. My family’s got ties—anything you want, you tell me and I’ll get it for you. This son-of-a-bitch is small potatoes compared to me.”
Hallie had an answer on the tip of her tongue but before she could get it out, both dragons reacted to something the man had said. Geva jerked the man’s head back sharply, growling a harsh epithet into his ear while Kol stepped swiftly toward him, nailing him in the gut with a fist the size of a sledgehammer.
David doubled over and collapsed to his knees, struggling to catch his breath. Kol squatted and gripped him by the hair, forcing his eyes up.
“I’m watching you, La Pietra. I will know your every single
fucking
move for the rest of your natural life, and trust me, I will outlive you. If you come near Hallie or our family again, you will wish I had killed you today.”
As he stood, he slipped a small, black card into the breast pocket of David’s jacket. Hallie knew what the card said. It was only a simple monogram on one side—the letter “M”—and on the backside simply “Magnus” followed by a phone number. She’d called the number once after Kol had the cards printed, curious where it led. It was the entry point to contact Kol himself, but was manned by a battleaxe of a receptionist. A female blue dragon who knew everything and wasn’t afraid to rip a caller a new asshole if they said the wrong thing. If a man like David couldn’t figure out who Kol was based on a single call to that number, he was a bigger idiot than she thought.
They left him there, wheezing on the median, and climbed into Erika’s Jeep to drive home.
***
“What the hell made you punch him?” Hallie asked at a stop light a few moments later. “I was sure you guys were making some other devious plan between you. Then all of a sudden it was fists.”
Kol had barely had a chance to calm down after the ordeal. His senses had been heightened since before he’d received Erika’s frantic call. Sitting in the meeting with the East Coast Shadow and the new client had been a waste of time. Two hours into the meeting he’d had an itch in his gut. The same feeling he’d had when Erika’s team had breached the temple. An invasion of his domain. Except this feeling was decidedly unwelcome.
Then the call had come, Erika’s voice frantic on the other end. Hallie had disappeared. The smirk of the human across the table had spurred him into action. With a quick instruction to his lower Shadow to deal with the human, he left to find her.
“He played me, at first,” Kol admitted. “I’m sorry for that. Had I been prepared I’d have been there for you quicker.”
“Baby, you
were
there. I just want to know what was going through your head back there. Not that I don’t appreciate everything. Call it morbid curiosity.”
Kol cleared his throat. Geva glanced back over the passenger seat he rode in, giving him a grin of solidarity.
“He called me a son-of-a-bitch,” Kol said. “Which is a gross insult to The Mother. We couldn’t let it stand without punishment. Painful punishment.”
Hallie opened her mouth once, then closed it and burst out laughing. “He insulted… oh the poor, poor bastard. I hope he doesn’t meet any other dragons. That’s pretty much his favorite term. I’m curious, though… if he hadn’t said that, what would the punishment have been?”
In unison the two dragons said. “We’d have fucked him.”
“Oh, please don’t tell me that,” Hallie said, she looked up into Kol’s face, searching. He didn’t feel nearly as mirthful as Geva seemed to, however.
He gave her a resigned look. “Geva would have done the honors, and the man would have enjoyed it more than getting punched in the gut. He deserved the humiliation either way.”
When she began to nod slowly, Kol finally relaxed, then bent to kiss the livid bruises on her arm. He should have killed the man, but that would have complicated their visit more than he needed.
That evening they received the call. Roka’s voice was on the other end of Kol’s line, calm and to the point. “We found her. Get to Tokyo as soon as you can…” He seemed to hesitate, then blurted out. “Can you take a commercial flight? There won’t be time to replenish your magic once you get here.”
Kol reassured him. “My jet’s fueled up. I’m sure we’ll be fine. We’ll be there tomorrow.”
“I think you mean today, my friend. I’ll see you soon.”
Thank you for enjoying Rising Dragons. Please look for Rising Dragons Book 6
Breath of Flame and Shadow
All Rowan wants is to understand what she is and to purge from her mind the memories of the dragon shifter she’s fallen for, who opened her eyes to her true nature. On the run from the overwhelming discovery of her origins and the heartbreak of Rafe’s rejection, she stretches her wings to the point of self destruction. She has to make a decision: rejoin humanity and reject her nature, or embrace her race and help them overcome a millennia-old set of laws. But none of that matters to her without Rafe’s love.
Rafe is destroying himself over the regret of not telling Rowan how he truly felt, but dragon law would not have allowed him to mate a female dragon. He hunts the farthest reaches of the Earth to find her, hoping that she will agree to help his race, but longing even more to finally confess to her what’s truly in his heart.
Coming Soon
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Thank you for enjoying Book 4 of Rising Dragons. If you missed the first series, please look for Sleeping Dragons Books 1-6
Box Set
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Books by Ophelia Bell
Sleeping Dragons Series
Rising Dragons Series
Standalone Erotic Tales
About Ophelia Bell
From fantasy erotica to sci-fi and contemporary, exploring the baser urges of the human psyche is what gets Ophelia Bell going. There’s nothing more beautiful than two people (or three, or four… or more!) lost in the throes of ecstasy. Skin on skin, urgent whispered pleas, the scent of sex and the salty taste of sweat. Nothing is more yummy than a good, juicy erotic story. If you have the same mindset you’ll love reading these books as much as she loves writing them.
Ophelia Bell spends her time in sunny Southern California with her very supportive husband and four attention-whoring cats.
Branded
Nora Ash
Being different was never easy.
After 27 years of living as a social outcast, Selma had become quite accustomed to the isolation and lack of dreams for a happy future. What she’d never gotten used to were the demons she saw—the dangerous creatures masquerading as humans, blending into the regular world as if they belonged.
No one else ever saw what she did—not when she was younger, and not the night she was attacked by horned monsters, losing the precarious grasp on her already damaged mind.
Trapped in a mental hospital, Selma’s only hope of gaining back her life is a young psychiatrist with smoldering looks and some very disturbing ideas for her treatments. If she is ever to see the outside world again, she must submit to him.
But he is one of them—and his intentions are far more devious than they appear.
Free in the Kindle Store
