Haunted By Her Dragon (The Dragon Guard Series) (13 page)

 
He put his arm around Sam in an attempt to keep her from hitting the ground
then stepped backward until he felt the bench against his calves and collapsed
with both ladies in his lap. Sam held onto both of them for all she was worth.
He rubbed long, smooth strokes up and down her back, hoping to help calm her
frazzled nerves. As her breathing returned to normal, he felt the fear,
frustration, and tension bleed from her body, leaving her leaning heavily
against his chest, still not speaking or moving. His heart swelled as Sydney’s
little hand landed on Sam’s shoulder, and she began to rub little circles of
comfort. The child looked up at him, shrugged, and whispered, “Is Dr. Sam okay,
Lance?”

Before
he could answer, Sam lifted her head and looked first at him and then at the
little one still rubbing her shoulder. “Yes, Sydney, I’m okay. I was just
very
worried about you.” She reached up, gently taking the child’s hand from her
shoulder, and holding it between hers. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you or
scare you at all?”

Sydney
smiled and shook her head, “Nope, not at all. He bought me an ice cream cone
from the cafeteria, and then we walked around over there where the flowers
are.” She pointed her little chubby fingers to the left of the hospital. “Then
we went over there.” She pointed behind where they were seated. “Andrew said
there were real pretty flowers over there, but we didn’t get to see them
because he said Lance was coming to take me back to the hospital. He promised
to show them to me another time.”

Sam
looked up into his eyes, and he could see that she was looking to him to
validate the child’s story and to somehow make her feel better about all that
had happened. He only wished he could. She looked back to Sydney, and asked,
“Why did you leave the hospital with a stranger?”

For
the first time since meeting the little beauty, Lance felt her tense and saw
confusion cross her face, “He wasn’t a stranger.” She paused and looked from
Sam to him and back to his mate again, fear just beginning to leak into her
gaze. “Andrew said he was your friend, Dr. Sam.”

Sam’s
back went stiff. She immediately took a deep breath, and he watched as she
fought hard to control her emotions. He felt her relax a little bit as she
began to speak, “Andrew is not a friend of mine, Sweetheart. I don’t even know
him.”

Tears
filled the little ones eyes. Never one to deal well with tears, Lance hurriedly
tried to diffuse the situation. “Andrew’s actually a friend of mine, Sydney. He
probably just misspoke when he said he knew Dr. Sam.” Both women exhaled. “Did
Andrew tell you anything else?” he asked.

She
smiled a watery grin in his direction and giggled, “He said to tell you…” She
paused, and he held his breath as she thought hard about the information the
traitor had shared with her. Lance felt his anger rising. What the fuck was
wrong with that fucking loser that he would use a child to get a message to
him? Her eyes brightened, but what she said caused chills to run down his spine
and Sam to sit up. “Now that he had your attention, he’d be seeing you soon.
He’s a silly man, Lance, isn’t he?” She giggled again, completely unaware that
she had landed smack in the middle of danger.

Not
wanting to scare the child, he chuckled with her, “He sure is a silly man,
Sydney. Did he say anything else?”

She
shook her head, “Nope, he just showed me his eyes. Did you know he had one blue
eye and one brown eye? No wait…that’s not right, he said the other one was
amber…whatever that means.” She shrugged and smiled her sweet innocent smile
that let him know she really was unharmed.

“I
did know that.” Not wanting to discuss the man responsible for so much pain and
suffering with the little cutie or his mate any longer, he quickly changed the
subject. “Why don’t you give Dr. Sam a hug, I think she needs it. Then let’s
get you back into the hospital. There are lots of people that want to see you.”

Sydney
climbed across his lap and grabbed a hold of Sam’s neck with such vigor she
reminded him of a little bear cub. His mate’s arms immediately wrapped around
the child and both sighed as if all was right in their world once again. Sam
was amazing, absolutely stunning, and incredibly intelligent. She had a
capacity for compassion that he’d been sure no longer existed in a world where
people like ‘The Auctioneer’ and Andrew were allowed to exist. In a nutshell,
she was perfect. For what seemed like the millionth time, he wondered how the
hell he was ever going to keep from claiming her until he and his brethren
could dispose of the traitor. If he had his way, he would grab her up and head
to the farthest end of the earth, where he could keep her safe from everyone
and everything. There he could spend endless days and nights kissing, touching,
tasting, and simply adoring every inch of her luscious body. He had spent so
very many hours imagining what it would be like to sink into her incredible
body, to feel her warm, wet pussy grip his incredibly hard cock as he worked
them both towards the ecstasy they so desired, that the visions were damn near
real enough to touch.

He
felt his cock rise and immediately shut down his thoughts. What the hell was
wrong with him? There was no time for daydreams, especially ones involving sex
with the most perfect woman in the world, and definitely not when there was a
child present. He was becoming the same pussy-whipped wimp as Rayne and Aidan.
Sam was his mate, the Universe made her especially for him, and he knew beyond
a shadow of a doubt that they were meant to be together in this life and the
next, but there was no way he was going to give up his spine to have it all.
Maybe that was the way his brethren wanted to play it, but not him. He still
had his free will. He was a Dragon Guardsman with the most Elite Force in the
world. He refused to walk around like a lovesick puppy, mooning over his
magnificent mate, bitching like a whiney, little girl because he couldn’t claim
her as quickly as he wanted.

Sure,
he’d been watching her from the shadows for over seven months. Sure she
monopolized damn near every thought he had both waking and sleeping. But he was
stronger than the rest, better at controlling his emotions than the others. All
he had to do was catch Andrew, make him give up the wizards he was working
with, and use that information they already knew to eliminate ‘The
Auctioneer’.  All while keeping his distance from Sam, but still making
sure she was safe and out of the line of fire.
Piece of
cake
.
He could almost hear Royce’s voice…
‘Yeah right, shove that
oversized head of yours just a little farther up your ass.’
Fuck that! He
could do it.

First
order of business, get the ladies that occupied his lap back into the hospital
and reconnect with the others of his Force for an update on the search for
Andrew. Then he needed to come up with a plan of action to accomplish his goals
in the least possible time. Decision made, he was just about to tell Sam and
Sydney it was time to go when his mate lifted her head and speared him with her
gorgeous dark brown eyes. Helpless to do anything but stare back at her as a
myriad of emotions cross her beautiful face, he felt his recently fortified
resolve beginning to crumble. Not willing to give up without a fight, he patted
her on the back and put his plan into motion.

Grinning,
he said, “Okay Ladies, enough of this
goofin
’ around.
Let’s get you two inside.”

Sam
smiled, pulled Sydney the rest of the way into her arms and slid her delectable
ass across his thigh. The unintentional sensual contact caused his already
semi-erect cock to stand at attention, further testing his resolve to resist
the lure of his mate. Only the threats against her safety and the child she
held in her arms kept him from kissing her until neither one could draw a
breath without the other. He grabbed Sam’s waist and helped her stand while
holding Sydney, to keep her from feeling his body’s reaction to her. It also
removed the greatest temptation he’d ever dealt with from touching his traitorous
body. While gaining her footing on the grassy surface, Sam stumbled, Lance
reached out to steady her, and his hand made contact with the silky skin just
above the waistband of her scrub pants. The resulting electric shock caused
them both to gasp. In unison, their eyes met. Her pupils dilated, and her
breathing sped up right along with his. She licked her lips and the want to
follow her tongue with his made him see double. Breathing deeply, he realized
that staying away from Dr. Samantha Malone was going to be the single hardest
thing he’d ever done.
Well, hell,
he groaned to himself, realizing
exactly how much shit he was going to have to put up with from his brothers. He
really was turning into a cream puff, and he feared there wasn’t shit he could
do about it.

CHAPTER FIVE

He watched as the
Dragon Guard ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, looking for him
with the hopes of taking him back to the Elders and the dreaded Tribunal. That
shit was absolutely
not
happening if he had anything to say about it.
Thankfully, John, a lackey of the wizard leader Andrew had been aligned with
during the horrible debacle at the abandoned warehouse, had shown up at his
door after going rogue. Together with the mid-level wizard and the other
formidable magic practitioners that he had ‘collected’ along the way, they were
able to perform several small rituals over the past few months that allowed him
to partially rebuild his store of black magic. It was nowhere near where it had
been before the fight with his brother. He had even had to drop his cover for a
short time in the hospital while he and the child were making their way
outdoors. Had he been able to find Kyra, the white witch that created the most
powerful amulets he’d ever seen, he would’ve had no problem evading those he
used to call brethren. But as fate would have it, the witch had disappeared
into the mountains surrounding the Dark Lake.

It
had taken almost three months, but he had finally tracked her using the training
he had once thought lost forever. His rusty tracking skills, and once
incredible sense of smell, would get him to within a mile of the little witch
and that was at least one step closer to his goal. Unfortunately, she had
disappeared just as he was closing in, evaporated into thin air, leaving no
trace. His only consolation had been the realization that the mate of one of
the Dragon Guard lived close by. He’d originally believed it was the witch
herself. He still wondered if maybe she was, and had some way of hiding that
information from him, too. But no matter, he would know her when he found her,
and if he was lucky enough, he would know the Guardsman she was destined to be
with also
.

No
one could hide their fate from him.  He was a
Special One,
and that
afforded him abilities no other possessed. Abilities that had been buried under
all the black magic, but now that they had reemerged would never be put to
sleep again. There was a time in the not so distant past that he was sure he
had lost those abilities, but the longer he went with only minimal exposure to
the deadly alchemy, the more that his dragon shifter traits reemerged; and they
seemed more resilient. Of course, that also meant it was easier for the Dragon
Guard and those damn
werepanthers
to track him. He
had to be extremely careful while he continued his hunt for the witch. It would
really suck to be caught and not be able to finish his plans for revenge. Kyra
was the key to his plans. She had to be found. He would settle for nothing
less.

Then
there was ‘The Auctioneer’ that John assured him could get them what they
needed to perform the Grand Ritual. The ancient magic would provide them with
enough dark power to last years. However, it also presented a problem he had
not foreseen. No matter how hard he tried, he could not justify the taking of
innocent
lives. What a time to grow a conscience. He was not stupid. He knew he had done
some really shitty things in his quest for vengeance, but it had always been to
people that deserved it. He’d started with the worthless wizards that had held
him hostage and tortured him for his dragon magic and then moved on to some
useless fucking hunters. Those that had died while he tried to ambush the
Dragon Guard were simply fanatics that hated for the sake of hating and
believed their lives were worth more than others. He had taken pleasure in
proving them wrong.

There
were the Dragon Guardsmen. The ones he had once called brethren, which
ironically included his
real
brothers. They’d done nothing to help him in
his greatest hour of need. Left for dead after his dragon had literally been
forced from the sky and his human form thrust upon him to be endlessly abused.
Where had they been? Lazy fucking cowards that they were had been caring for
the yellow-bellied loser with whom he shared blood. The one he had once held in
the highest regard, caring more for the brother that ran off into the night and
left him at the hands of those magic-hungry wizards more than for him.

He
did feel bad that the Commander’s mate and his brother’s mate had been injured
in his bid for revenge, but if they were half the men and Guardsmen they
claimed to be, they should’ve been able to keep their women safe. He’d heard
through his extensive network of spies that both women had recovered and that
Rayne’s mate had given birth to their first child. Aidan and Grace had also
been officially mated. Apparently, he hadn’t ruined their lives at all, but had
added to it, and that meant they had more to lose when he sent them both to
their forever deaths. He would watch as the realization came over them that
they were about to lose it
all
just as the light left their eyes. There
would be no regret, no second thoughts, just the complete joy of finally
avenging all that he had endured because the Elite Dragon Guard were pussies
and couldn’t save him.