Seducing the Dragon: Part Four (2 page)

“I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t. Once we take care of the dragon hunters and Murray is back safe and sound, we can try asking that friend of yours, the one who ‘knows more about dragon-shifters than just anyone alive’ as you put it.”

She nodded. “Good idea. To be honest, we should find a way to ensure her safety. If word ever got out about her knowledge, she would become a target.”

“I wish I could allow an unmated human to live on my lands from time to time, but right now, the law forbids it. Maybe Melanie’s book can help change all that.” Bram turned so he could haul Evie against the front of his body. He needed her warmth to battle his inner dragon’s current roaring and pushing against his invisible prison. “For now, I need to check in with Kai and Finn and then both of us need some rest. Since I can’t risk shifting anytime soon, I’ll have to drive back to Stonefire in the morning. I don’t want to leave you here, but you’re easy pickings back on Stonefire’s lands. A guard or two should come here once Finn’s people arrive to help relieve the strain on my Protectors.”

Evie poked his chest. “You had better keep me in the loop. I have the data on the laptop to sift through and I might just have to save your arse again.”

He smiled. “I look forward to it. But next time, love, could you leave my cock and balls out of it?”

His female laughed. “I think I’m going to keep a cricket bat next to our bed in the future. If you thought the plunger handle was bad, just you wait. The cricket bat will have you crying like a baby.”

“Then here’s to hoping you never need to use it.” Bram gave Evie a brief kiss and then patted her arse. “Right, you go shower while I talk to Kai and Finn.”

Evie nodded. “Okay.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick, rough kiss as she squeezed his arse cheeks. “It’s good to have you back, dragonman. Your dragon knows how to give hot sex, but without your humor, it’s not quite the same.”

His inner beast growled at her words. Bram ignored him and gently slapped her arse. “Just wait until I have both sides of me working together. Then you’ll never want to leave my bed.”

“I could make a flippant remark right now, but seeing as a shitload of danger is coming, I’m going to be honest. I’m not going anywhere, dragonman, because you’re mine.”

Her words caused joy to course through his body and even soothed his dragon’s anger a fraction. “Good, because you’re mine, Evie Marshall, and I’m keeping you.” After one more kiss, he said, “Now go shower before my cock recovers and I think about taking you slowly and gently.”

Evie frowned. “No more sex until Murray is back. That’s an extra incentive for you to finish the job quickly and come back to me alive.”

While his dragon was grumbling about the ‘no sex’ statement, Bram didn’t mind as much. “As long as you’re waiting in my bed when I return, I can live with that.”

Evie grinned. “Now I have something fun to plan.”

“The glint in your eyes doesn’t bode well for me.” He stepped back and motioned toward the bathroom. “As much as I want to hold you in my arms and talk with you for the next week, Murray and the clan need my attention. Shower, love. I’ll fill you in afterward.”

Nodding, Evie left. Once she shut the door, he addressed his inner beast.
Until you calm the fuck down, you’re staying in that prison. I need to rescue wee Murray and save the clan. When you’re ready to help me, I’ll let you out.

His beast snarled.
Protect our mate first, then save the clan.
 

I will protect her. But unless you want the Scottish leader to take over, you’d bloody well better get a grip, and soon.

Just as he’d expected, since Evie wasn’t in the room, his dragon stopped fighting and growled.
We are the leader of Clan Stonefire. We will save them.

Good. Prove it to me. While I sleep with Evie, you find a way to calm down. Since we survived the clan leader trials, this should be easy.

His dragon huffed.
I want her many more times, until she carries our child.

He blinked.
Now would be the time to tell me your damn secret. Is Evie our true mate?

Yes. I must claim her completely, until she carries our young and our scent. You should understand.

A mixture of joy and ‘holy shit’ hit him.
Forget the claiming bit. Why didn’t you tell me earlier she was our true mate?
 

Because, you would have seen her as a duty. A child would help the clan, so you would make sure she conceived without knowing her. You needed to want her for her, to make her happy.

He’d never heard of a dragon being able to rein in the mate-claim frenzy before.
You are stronger than I thought.

Of course. You always underestimate me. I am brilliant.

One corner of his mouth ticked up at his dragon’s matter of fact tone.
Well, brilliant one, not telling me the truth put our mate in danger. Don’t do it again.
Silence was his reply so Bram pushed on.
I’m still keeping you in there. You’ve calmed down a bit with me, but Evie’s scent will scramble your brain again. Work on your restraint. We will handle the frenzy once the clan is safe.

His beast grunted.
I don’t like it, but I will try. I don’t want the Scottish leader and his dragon to save our clan. We should do it.

Agreed. Now, I must talk with Kai.

As Bram moved to where he had a phone line connection, he tried but failed to push aside what his dragon had just told them.
 

Evie was their true mate.

He’d wanted her even before he’d known that tidbit of information, but just the thought of her one day carrying his child filled his heart with warmth. Evie would make a fantastic mother.
 

Except, he hoped she wasn’t pregnant yet. Before the next time they had sex, he’d have to talk with her. She should have a choice in when she had a child. She wasn’t a sacrifice who’d gone in knowing it would happen.

Yet to have that talk, he needed to take care of the hunter threat. As he dialed Kai’s mobile phone number, Bram stashed away his feelings about Evie. His female was clever, and if he wasn’t careful, she’d catch on that he was hiding something. He didn’t like keeping secrets from her, but in this case, she might become distracted with the news. He needed her help to sort through the information she downloaded. Retrieving Murray wasn’t going to be easy; Evie might well find the answer needed to win against the dragon hunters.

So, as much as Bram wanted to shout from the rooftops that Evie was his true mate, he bottled up his joy and stuffed it deep inside himself. The emotion would be a distraction and he needed to focus on living long enough to see what surprises she had in store for him when he returned. Only when he returned would he be able to claim Evie as his true mate.

Chapter Two

Finlay Stewart watched as five of Lochguard’s youngest Protectors landed in the Stonefire takeoff area.

His lands might be more isolated than Stonefire’s since his clan’s lands were in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands and safer from outside attacks, but he couldn’t risk sending his more mature soldiers. They needed to look after the clan.

His clan didn’t share the same sense of unity he had witnessed amongst Stonefire’s members. No, Lochguard was far more fractured than he liked, which meant petty arguments and fights broke out on a regular basis. Only his strongest Protectors could keep them in check during his absence.

The former clan leader, Dougal Munro, had done a bloody awful job of keeping the clan together, let alone encouraging them to work together as a unit. If things continued as they had over the past six months, his hair would turn gray in no time.

Finn’s dragon growled and said,
Stop it. The past can’t be changed. Work on the future.

If only it were that simple. This threat to Stonefire may well soon be ours, and that worries me.

Gain the trust of our new allies. Then they will help us.

Finn knew that already, but sometimes he still second-guessed himself at winning the right to lead Clan Lochguard. Half the time he didn’t know what the bloody hell he was doing. Only through pure stubbornness had he done a halfway okay job so far. His alliance with Bram Moore-Llewellyn was his biggest win to date.

One by one, his five Protectors removed the satchels tied to their hind legs before shifting into their human forms. The sight made Finn focus back on the present. His dragon was right—if he succeeded in helping Bram, then the Stonefire leader may help him in the future. The dragon clans needed to learn to work together. One day, the British government would stop trying to protect them. Finn wanted his clan to be ready for that day.

As he walked toward his clan members, who were in the middle of removing clothes from the satchels and getting dressed, his dragon said,
Working with this clan also means we can see Arabella again. She is a puzzle I want to solve.

If the rumors are true, then she’s been through hell. I can’t force her to come to our lands.

Make her laugh. That will work.

Finn wondered if that were true. Then Arabella’s dark brown eyes, full of intelligence, caution, and a little sass flashed into his mind. She was somewhat damaged, but he wondered what it would be like for the clever lass to simply be herself.
We’ll see. For now, we must help our new allies.

Stopping in front of his five young Protectors, he switched into clan-leader mode and asked, “Did you notice any unusual activity on your flight here?”

The leader of the wing of dragons, Faye, finished tying her long, curly, brown hair back with a hair tie before saying, “No, we were cautious and made sure to backtrack to lose any sort of tail. Care to tell us what’s so urgent we had to fly the long way around to Stonefire’s lands?”

At least they had come when he called. For a short while, Finn had worried about if he were still too new a leader to be trusted at the drop of a hat. Sure, these were some of his most loyal Protectors, who agreed with his vision of the future, but that loyalty had never really been tested before. “The Carlisle dragon hunters have more savvy technology than we figured. I couldn’t risk them listening in.”

One of the other Lochguard dragons, Shay, spoke up. “Why would Carlisle monitor us? It’s the Inverness hunters who are the pains in our arses.”

Finn crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, aye? So you’re the new clan leader then, privy to classified information? I must’ve missed your trials and confirmation. Otherwise, you’re speaking out of turn, lad.”

Shay, a lad of twenty-three and barely out of his mandatory time with the British armed forces, paused to collect himself a second before mumbling, “Sorry, sir.”

Finn nodded in acknowledgment. The lad had been making progress with his temper and the present was no time to castigate him in front of the others. Finn would have a chat with him again later.

He then eyed each of his five clan members in turn. “Look, Carlisle’s leader, Simon Bourne, is someone every dragon-shifter clan in the UK should worry about. He’s stealing dragon-shifter bairns and we think he plans to use them to create his own blood farm.”

Faye said, “But that would take nearly two decades of housing a dragon-shifter before their blood was of any use to the hunter.”

Finn nodded. “Aye, but for a man with ambition, time is just one of the many things they use to their advantage.” After quickly filling them in on Evie’s theory, he continued, “With Carlisle so close, Stonefire is their main target. Bram Moore-Llewellyn needs our help. I’m going to turn you over to Kai, the head Protector here, and you follow his orders to the letter, understood?”

Faye frowned. “And what will you do, Finn?”

Rather than tell them the truth of how Finn wanted to make sure Bram focused despite the threat to his mate, he merely replied, “I need to touch base with Bram and go from there.” His wing leader nodded and Finn turned. He said over his shoulder, “Right, then follow me. I’ll give the tour later. For now, just know that if Stonefire falls, Lochguard will probably be next. For all intents and purposes, they are your clan for the next day or two. Don’t fuck up and don’t die.”

He hated being a hardass, but the clan was used to Dougal Munro’s almost dictator-like style. It would take time to acclimate the clan to his slightly more laid-back methods of trusting responsible dragon-shifters to make good choices, even without him ordering them around.

As he led his team to the location previously provided by Kai to check-in, Finn’s heart beat double time. The alliance and bringing in his own Protectors to help Stonefire were his first real tests as clan leader. He needed to heed his own advice and not fuck up and die.

~~~

“Evie, love, wake up”

Evie vaguely registered Bram’s voice, but rather than answer, she snuggled deeper into her pillow. She was still exhausted from their sex marathon.
 

Then there was a whoosh and a blast of cool air. She flipped on her back and blinked her eyes open to see Bram holding her blanket in one hand and a mug in the other. Her voice was heavy with sleep when she said, “What the hell, Bram? Will I ever be allowed to wake up on my own?”

“It’s better than a pitcher of ice water, isn’t it, love?”

She grunted. Rather than argue, she sat up and stretched her arms. “I’m assuming there’s a reason for waking me. Is it morning already?”

Bram sat down on the edge of the bed and handed her a cup of coffee. “Almost, but Nikki and Charlie are nearly at the meeting point, where I’ll meet them to bring both females back here. I figured you’d want to be ready before they arrive, and maybe give me a good kiss or two to send me off.”

Evie took a sip of coffee, strong with milk and no sugar, as she preferred. “So through the power of deduction, I’m guessing Charlie is another Stonefire Protector. I didn’t realize there were so many female Protectors, especially given the smaller female population.”

“There are only two in Stonefire, which is more than most of the British clans. Some leaders coddle their females, in the hopes they’ll have more babies. You’ve seen the clan and know how well that would go over here.”