Her Dragon's Fire (14 page)

Grace was the first to break the silence, “So you believe me about the feelings I get?”

“I’ve learned to never question someone’s ‘special abilities’. Of course I believe you, and I’m happy you chose to confide in me. More importantly, I’m glad that they helped save your life.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“I have something else to tell you.” Aidan nodded for her to continue. “The same
special intuition
that told me about the danger last night is also telling me something about you.” Aidan’s brow furrowed and waited for her to finish.

Hurrying on before she lost her nerve, with the butterflies in her stomach threatening to overtake her even worse than when she had cross-examined her first client in open court. “They’re telling me that I should see what this thing,” she motioned between them with her hand, “between us, is.”

She no sooner had the words out of her mouth than Aidan’s lips latched onto hers. He kissed her until her eyes rolled back in her head and then just as quickly as it had started, the kiss was over. She opened her eyes, basking in the glow of his dazzling smile. Her body leaned towards his of its own volition but his strong hold kept their lips from touching. “We’ll be doing a lot more of that, but right now we need to figure out what those assholes were doing in your office last night.”

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. When her kiss addled brain cleared, Grace asked, “So you think those men had something to do with the case we are building against ‘The Auctioneer’?”

Aidan slid his arms down her back, picked her up, and shifted his massive body until he was sitting up with her in his lap. She squirmed to get off but he held her tight, “You might want to stop wiggling around,
mo chroi
. I want to talk about this with you, but I can’t be responsible for what happens when your delectable ass rubs against me like that,” he whispered in her ear.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She gasped and sat as still as a statue. Aidan threw back his head and laughed. When she giggled and gave a quick little shimmy to stop his laughing, he loved her all the more. Aidan grabbed her hips and kissed the side of her neck. He had just decided talking could wait when Lance’s voice sounded in his head,
“’A’, you there?”

He moved Grace down his lap, breaking the contact of her luscious ass with his ready for action cock, still gripping her hips,
“Yea, I’m here. Where else would I be?”
he answered, irritated at the interruption.

“Well hell, I have no clue. Don’t get shitty with me. Max has been trying to get a hold of you for almost an hour. He said he heard from his people in the wizard camp. Something big is happening and you aren’t going to be happy, but they spotted Andrew in the middle of the shit.”

“Shit! How far out are you?”

“About an hour from you. We’re still in flight.”

Lance’s tone sounded off, almost stressed, and stress was not an emotion his joking brethren ever experienced.
“Who is with you?”
Aidan sensed his hesitation
, “The whole force?”
He paused, praying for the answer he
knew
was not coming
, “Rayne?”

“Yea, dude, the Commander is here. Sorry, bro. He was standing right beside me when Max called. There was no way to get away without telling him what was going on?”

“Fuck!”
He wondered how much harder this shit was going to get before he got a break. “
Guess Kyndel is pissed, huh?”

“She said and I quote, ‘Tell ‘A’ if one hair on Grace’s head is harmed, I will kick his ass.’ Then she hugged me and whispered, ‘Tell him to keep her safe and bring her to me.’”

Aidan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and thought,
Oh hell yea, Spitfire, I’ll keep her safe and get her home as soon as I can.
Now that the cat was out of the bag and they all knew, or had figured out she was his mate, he didn’t have to hold back anything. Not that he planned on it any way, but there was something that just felt right about the people he held most dear, knowing about the person who held his heart.

“See you when you get here. I have to figure out a way to get Grace ready and back to the lair where she will be safe.”

“Have you told her about us?”

“No, I was trying to take it slow. Guess that damn ship has sailed.”

Lance chuckled through their link,
“Good luck with that, bro.”

Aidan cut their connection just as Grace jumped off his lap. From the look on her face, he had missed something important during his chat with Lance.

“What the hell, Aidan? You had a death grip on my hips and just ignored me when I asked you to let go.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he could feel the daggers shooting from her stormy baby blues, “What are you not telling me?”

His mate stood in front of him like one of the warrior women from all the tales the Elders told around the fire when he was a young. She was ready for battle, with her hands planted on her hips, hair mussed from their love making, brow furrowed, and her stare so intent her eyes had darkened to an almost gun-metal grey. Damn, if she wasn’t the most magnificent creature he had ever seen, and from the look of things, her patience was wearing thin. He decided it was now or never; time to tell his Grace all of his secrets.

“
Well
, what the hell is going on, Aidan?” She tapped her foot, getting angrier by the minute.

“You remember just a minute ago when you told me about your
spidey senses
?”

She nodded once, and if possible, narrowed her gaze even more.

“Well, I have some
special abilities
too.” He paused, waiting for her to stop him with questions, “One of them allows my brethren and me to communicate mind to mind. We call it mind speak.”

She stood there staring at him, as if waiting for more of an explanation, so he rushed on. “There are six of us total. Kyndel’s ma..husband, who you know, is our Commander. We have been fighting together for a long time and share a special bond, part through fealty and the other through the blood we have shared. The bond allows us to more effectively protect the people we must, and fight those that seek to harm us and our way of life.”

Grace’s hands slid off her hips, her eyes going from little slits of accusation to the size of saucers instantly, and her mouth dropped open. His dragon pushed him to go to her, to comfort her, but knew she had to work this out for herself, without his interference. His poor mate had gotten one shock after the other in the last twelve hours and he knew there were bigger ones to come. Her mouth closed and opened a couple of times before she started to pace in front of him. “So you were talking to one of your ‘brethren’ just now?” She stopped in front of him and waited for his answer.

Aidan nodded, not wanting to disrupt her thought processes as she wrestled with this new information. She started pacing again, talking as she wore a groove in the carpet, “And from the way you had a hold of my hips, I’m guessing that whatever he told you was not good news?”

She looked over her shoulder as she passed in front of him. He nodded once, confirming that it was most definitely not good news. She stopped right in front of him, once again taking her warrior stance, “What are you, Aidan?”

Stunned by her direct question, it took almost three heartbeats before he could find his voice. He rose from the couch, still completely naked, and walked to her. He opened his heart and mind wide, showing her all that he was. He placed his hand over her heart and lifted hers, placing it in the same spot on his chest. It was now or never. “I’m going need to you trust me,
mo ghra’
. I’m going to ask you to take a lot of what I say on faith; something I know is not easy for you,” he paused while she unconsciously nodded her head. “I’m going to need for you to
trust
me.”

He searched her eyes for any signs of doubt or a hint that she was thinking of running, but all he saw was her need to hear him out and the overriding need to believe in him. She had felt the pull and was looking to him to help her understand what she was feeling. He knew now was the time; he needed her to know all there was to know about him. He needed her to
know him
. “I already told you I can mind speak with my brethren. There are six of us; Rayne, who you already know, Lance and Royce, who were with me last night, plus Devon and Aaron, who you’ll meet as soon as they get here. Just so you know, Aaron is my twin. And before you ask,
no,
we are not identical, but it is painfully obvious that we are brothers.” He winked and continued his explanation, “We are descended from an ancient race of warriors charged with protecting our kin from those that would see us exterminated, along with the innocents that know of our existence. They oppose any and all that do not subscribe to ‘their way of thinking’. We have upheld this duty with honor since the time of King Arthur.

“Our families were chosen above all others. They epitomized the characteristics of the most revered knights, courtesy, honesty, generosity, courage, loyalty, discretion, wisdom, bravery and they were honorable above all others. These men not only possessed these traits, they
were
these traits, each quality evident in their every action, thought, and deed. In the sixth century, shortly after King Arthur’s disappearance, our brave ancestors took up the fight, and this honor has been passed generation after generation to the male members of our families.”

With his hand covering her heart and his enhanced senses, he had been monitoring the changes in her heart beat and breathing. Now, more than ever, he needed her to stay with him. He needed to know that she was truly grasping what he was saying. The next bit of information he would share would take all the trust she could muster
and
her
special intuition
to help her believe him. He knew the Universe did not make mistakes and that Grace was his mate, the one above all others destined to be at his side, in this life and the next. She had been made especially for him, the other half of his soul, the completion of the man and his beast. But he really wished this part came with an instruction manual.

“Grace,
a chumann,
I need you to keep an open mind. There is more to the story, more that will require you to believe that I would
never
lie to you. I want you to open those
spidey senses
of yours wide and let them show you the truth,” he smiled a cheeky little half grin at her. “The men I told you about, my ancestors and those of the men I am proud to call brother, were also chosen by the dragons that fought alongside those brave knights.

“The dragons were being driven into extinction by the hunters, a group of zealots trained by dark wizards to exterminate all dragon kind. The dragons’ oldest enemies, coupled with the growing human population, made keeping their existence hidden from humans almost impossible. They enlisted the help of a very powerful white magic mage to combine the very essence of the fierce dragon warriors with the knight of their choosing. Once the spell had been cast, the
heart
of the dragon resided within the man. The man and the dragon learned to coexist and when needed, the dragon would come forth to defend those in need.”

He felt her heart pound, heard her breathing escalate, and watched a flood of thoughts and emotions whisk through her expressive blue eyes. “Are you still with me,
mo chroi
?”

Grace nodded her head, “Yea, I am.” She held her eyes to his, “No matter how hard I try

not
to believe what you’re saying, everything in me, including my
special intuition
, is assuring me you are speaking the absolute truth.” She shook her head as if that would make it all change somehow, “How can that be? This is the stuff fantasy novels are written about. How can it be happening right in front of me?”

He pulled her against his chest, her arms automatically wrapping around his waist. At the touch of her hands, the tattoo on his lower back began to move. He knew she would be feeling little shocks through her fingertips and up her arms. Grace pulled back and slowly walked around his body.

Aidan stood still as his mate moved behind him. He
knew
she had to investigate what she had felt, it was her nature, and she had to see to believe. It was something that had to happen during the course of their mating for it was one of the many ways the dragon
felt
their mate, his beast needed this as much as his mate did. She was not only the light to Aidan’s soul; she was the same for the dragon within. This was a
very
important introduction.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*