Stranded with the Cajun (Captured by a Dragon-Shifter Book 3) (2 page)

D
rake didn’t enjoy injuring
the animal as he slammed his fist against the creature’s scaly head, but it was the only way he knew to force it to let go of his arm. The pressure of the powerful jaws on his forearm hurt but the armor of his shifted skin protected him from severe injury. The alligator loosened his hold and Drake ripped his arm free so that he could surface for air.

Gasping for breath, he kicked in the alligator’s direction a few times. The creature swam from him, and Drake was able to make his way onto the airboat. He grunted as he pulled himself out of the water.

The glow of the penlight illuminated the bottom of the boat, but he didn’t need it. His shifted eyes cut through the darkness with ease. He reached for the unconscious woman lying next to the corpse of the old man. Her skin was warm, and he could see the rise and fall of her back as she breathed.

Stupid human.

What was she thinking by jumping into an alligator’s mouth? Drake had only come through the portal to Earth a few years ago, and even he knew you didn’t offer yourself up as a tasty snack to monsters with big teeth.

Not waiting around to see if another alligator would be attracted to the noise the underwater skirmish had made and come looking for a meal, Drake let his body shift into his human form and instantly set to work trying to get the boat to run.

Stupid dragon-shifter.

He shouldn’t have scared her like that. What had he expected jumping up onto a boat in his shifted form? Those who knew his secret had warned him about showing others. But it wasn’t as if he could swim the swamps at night without protection. The woman clearly needed help. And if Lady Big Daddy’s poor decision-making skills in a crisis were any indication, she wasn’t a local.

Wait. Miss. Here they called them miss, not my lady. Miss Big Daddy. Or was Big Daddy her father? Yes. That made the most sense.

The rudder stick was jammed and took some maneuvering, but he was able to get the airboat working again. Thankfully, the mud bank wasn’t too high. He dislodged the bottom of the boat and returned it to the water.

The penlight bounced as he steered the boat through the dark swamps. Light danced over the unconscious woman’s body. Her legs were bare and streaked with mud. Drake found himself studying her breathing more than watching where he drove. Something about her caused a strange feeling inside his chest like they had met before, and he kept waiting for recognition to come to him. A few times, he steered too close to the trees. Once, a small limb hit the fan behind him. With a 150-mile-per-hour prop wash, the force of the fan caused chunks of debris to hit the back of his neck.

“Ach!” Drake swiped the blood trickling over his shoulder.

He’d helped work on the boats as one of his odd jobs to earn food and supplies, but he wasn’t used to piloting them. With no breaks on an airboat, he did his best to slow down and aim for the small dock near his home. The old wood planks had seen better days, and a corner was submerged in water. The boat drifted onto the shore next to the dock.

It would be easier to carry the woman if he shifted form, but Drake didn’t want to frighten her if she awoke while he took her inside his small cabin home. He slowly turned her onto her back. The subtle color shift on her forehead predicted the forming of a bruise. He touched the wound lightly. Her skin was soft.

Tradition had it that when he saw his mate, he’d know. At least that is what the elders claimed. The humans appeared to be much more unsure of the process. Why else would they get their marriage choices wrong so often? Perhaps humans did not have the same mating gene as the Draig.

Drake hefted the woman into his arms and hopped off the end of the boat onto the shore. She moaned, a soft, female sound. He tried to step lightly as not to jostle her.

His cabin was small, simple, but it reminded him of home—not like the busy streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter where he’d first been introduced to Earth culture. The Louisiana swamps were a lot like the marshes near where he’d grown up. Well, except his homeland had small poisonous
givre
and Louisiana had giant alligators…and beautiful, stranded women.

A widow let him stay in the cabin in return for help whenever she needed it. Usually, that meant Ursa wanted someone to eat with her and help mow her lawn. Before coming to Earth, Drake had never mowed a lawn. It was strangely rewarding—like a mini harvesting where he was the giant plowing down tiny fields.

He might be spending too much time alone these days.

He placed the woman on his bed and studied her for a moment. It appeared very intimate to have her here, especially since she was missing pants. A man’s bed was for a wife. He lifted her back up and moved her to the couch. Studying her again, he frowned. There wasn’t as much space for her on the couch, and it felt wrong to give a woman an inadequate bed. Finally, he picked her up yet again and placed her back on his bed.

For a long moment, he stared at her. Now that he had her safe, he wondered what he should do with her. With her father now dead, she was clearly his responsibility. He’d need to do things for her. Provide. Feed her. Clothe her. Find her a suitable mate. Kill the unsuitable ones if they dared too much. It was a lot of responsibility. He’d never been a guardian before.

Kneeling beside the bed, he found himself enamored with her face. Perhaps he should kill any man who dared to come too close to her. The strong sense of protection he felt took him by surprise, but the gods had put her in his path for a reason. Hesitantly, he moved to caress her cheek. That’s when he realized his shirtsleeve was soaked with blood, and he was a little lightheaded from the swamp battle.

Maybe resting for the moment would be his best course of action. Drake backed away from her, slumped against the bedroom wall and then slid down to the floor. He needed to watch over her anyway. Here would be as good of a place as any.

L
ori didn’t open
her eyes as she pushed out of bed. More on autopilot than aware, she moved until her feet hit the floor. Morning was not her time to shine, but photoshoots often demanded she function before dawn. A slight headache settled around the back of her right eye, but she didn’t think it was anything a vat of coffee wouldn’t cure.

She rubbed her temple and reached forward to where her light switch should be as she finally peeked to see where she was going. The shock of unfamiliar wall hit her about the same time her foot accidently kicked an animal on the floor. She jumped back with a loud gasp. It took several moments for her to process that she stood in a strange bedroom in some kind of log cabin. The bed was covered with a large blue blanket embroidered with a silver dragon. It wasn’t exactly what she’d expect to see in a cabin. Blinking hard, she tried to process her surroundings. She looked to the floor. It wasn’t a dog, but a man slouched uncomfortably against the wall. His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.

Lori kneeled beside him. She lifted his jaw and brushed a shock of dark hair off his face. Handsome features were made rugged by a scar along his temple and the slight stubble of his beard. His skin was hot to the touch.

“Mister?” She cradled his head and gave him a little shake. “Mister, can you wake up?” She frowned. What did the Cajuns who’d rented her the airboat call a man? “Um,
monsieur
? Mister? Dude? Guy bleeding on the floor wake your ass up?”

No answer, just the even rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. She glanced over his body, finding his arm covered in dried blood. When she tried to pull at his sleeve, it stuck to his skin. She remembered hallucinating what looked like a lizard man fighting an alligator. This, of course, was nothing as ridiculous as a lizard man, but the wound on his arm did make her think he was the man who’d rescued her in the swamps.

“Hello?” she yelled. “Is anyone here? We need a doctor. Hello?”

Lori’s call went unanswered.

“Ok, then, mister. Let’s get you on the bed and figure out what’s wrong with you.” Having a plan was much easier than implementing it. She braced her legs and slipped her arms around his torso, but no amount of willpower was going to help her muscles lift the over six foot tall, broad frame. “Shit.” She rested him against the wall. “Don’t worry, mister. I’ll figure out something. You saved me from the swamp. I’m not going to let anything happen to you on my watch.”

Lori went to the bed and pulled off the bedding and pillows. She laid them on the floor and then maneuvered the man onto the makeshift bed. It wasn’t perfect, but at least he would be more comfortable. After she had finished, she studied her work. He lay on his back. His arms were at his sides. His legs were pulled straight.

Lori went in search of a first aid kit and telephone. The cabin home was sparse—a few pieces of sturdy furniture, a refrigerator and stove, a bathroom neatly supplied with masculine toiletries.

“Oh, great, I keep getting stranded with Cajuns in the middle of nowhere, and this one is trying to die on me, too. All I need is one stupid phone.” She opened drawers and cabinets, frantically searching for anything that would help. “Come on, who doesn’t have a phone in this century?”

Lori found washcloths, soap and hard liquor, but no medicines of any kind. As for a phone, she found an old house jack but nothing to plug into it. If this trip wasn’t a warning against leaving her cell phone behind and going low tech, she wasn’t sure what was.

Outside the airboat with Big Daddy’s body had been pushed next to a broken dock, but there were no signs of vehicles of any kind. She wouldn’t be driving him to a hospital.

“I really am stranded out here,” she said, the fear building inside of her.

She returned to the bedroom and set to work cleaning the man’s arm. Several punctures surrounded a long gash. Angry red skin lined the deep wound.

“This is for your own good,” she said as she poured liquor over his arm to sanitize it before gently laying a washcloth over the gash. He didn’t react. Lori searched his dresser and ended up tying the washcloth in place with a pair of his socks.

As soon as she finished tying the sock, he lifted his arm. Lori gasped and fell back. He studied the bandage and arched a brow. “Are you done burning me?”

“Burning…?” Lori glanced to the liquor bottle. “You were awake for that?”

“I’ve been awake since you stroked my legs.” His voice was deep and sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t recognize his accent, but it vaguely reminded her of a Scandinavian actor she’d seen on television once.

“Stroked…?” She looked at his leg. Had she touched him inappropriately when she’d moved him onto his back? “No, I wasn’t…”

The man smiled.

“Why didn’t you say something if you were awake?” she demanded.

His smile widened.

“I thought you were dying.” She gestured to his arm.

He dropped his bandaged arm to his stomach. “I wanted to see what you were trying to do to me.”

Lori looked down the man’s body. She wasn’t sure if he meant for his words to sound so sexual and inviting, but they were. She thought how easy it would be to climb over him and…

Think of a new topic,
she ordered herself.

“You don’t sound Cajun,” she observed. “You don’t even sound like you’re from the South. What are you doing out here in the swamps?”

Ok, stupid topic, but better than salivating over him.

“I am,” he answered. “I live here. This is the South. I am Cajun.”

“No, I would say Scandinavian. Swedish? Norwegian?”

“Ursa said if anyone asked I am to say I am Cajun.” He looked very sincere.

Lori felt a small tickle of apprehension. Logically, if someone was to say to her that they were trapped in a cabin in the middle of a nowhere swamp with a man claiming to be something he was not, with no technical conveniences, she’d tell them they had better run from a serial killer…or a really awful horror movie plot.

“Ursa?”

“She did a ceremony to make it official,” he continued.

“A ceremony? To make you Cajun?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of ceremony?”

“We had to drink a bottle of her moonshine and then I swam naked in the swamp while she watched from the shore.”

“Oh, um, ok. My mistake. You’re clearly Cajun.” Lori waved her hand in dismissal, not wanting to delve into the craziness of that conversation. “We should get you to a hospital.”

“I should provide you with something more appropriate to wear,” he answered, as if to dismiss her suggestion that he should seek medical help.

Lori glanced down, seeing she wore a not-so-charming combination of mud and panties. “It covers as much as my swimsuit,” she said, “but, yes, perhaps I should change.”

“Yes. You wash. I will tend to your father.”

“My father?”

“I heard you call that man your daddy. I am sorry you lost him in such a way.” He pushed up to sit on the floor.

“Big Daddy is not my father. He was my swamp guide.” Lori found herself staring at his facial scar, wondering how he’d received it.

“Then I should get Big Daddy to his people,” the man said. “They will wish to honor his remains.”

“Big Daddy can’t be helped. You need a doctor to look at that arm and to keep it from getting infected. There could be nerve damage.” She used the dresser to pull herself to her feet. He gestured to a drawer. Lori found a pair of athletic shorts inside. He watched as she pulled them over her legs.

“I should not have left him on the boat.” The man stood.

“Whoa, easy, let the authorities take care of it. They might not like it if you move his body.” Lori walked after him as he left the room.

“You have a strange way of showing respect to your dead,” he stated.

“And you seem unable to admit you’re sick and need to see a doctor,” she answered. “That arm needs to be looked at.”

He lifted it and studied the wound for a brief moment, a superficial gesture. “It is healing.”

Lori again noted his old scar. “Is there a reason why you aren’t one for medical care?”

“I do not need doctors,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“Did something happen to make you not trust doctors? I’m not sure by your accent where you were before coming to America, but our health care system is very dependable and safe.”

The man touched his cheek. “You keep eyeing my scar. This is not from last night. It does not need care.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to stare.” Lori forced her eyes away. “It seemed as if there might be a story there.”

“On my home world, there was a disagreement with neighboring Var marsh farmers who wanted to steal part of my family’s growing territory. When we refused and fought back, the Myrddin clan sent cat guards to intimidate us. They jumped out of the brush to attack us like cowards and this scar is the result of one of those raids.”

“What happened?” Lori didn’t remember hearing about the events he was talking about. “Did your family keep your land?”

“We petitioned the Draig royals to help us stop the attacks to our borders. The Myrddin clan denied it and, being as they are one of the oldest noble families on the planet, they were not questioned. Our royals brokered a deal with the Var royals, and we lost some of our family’s property to the Var because they claimed to have found old territorial documents that proved it was their land, and we were trespassing. Never mind that my family had been growing on it since anyone could remember, and the validity of the documents could not be proven.” The man sighed. “It is one of the reasons I left Qurilixen and came here.”

Draig? Var? Qurilixen? These weren’t people and places she recognized.

There was a sadness in him when he talked about it, but also a detachment as if he’d come to terms with whatever the past had given him. When he once more moved toward the airboat near a half-sunken dock, she grabbed his uninjured arm to stop him. “Just stop for a second.”

He looked down at her hand. As much as she tried to ignore it, she felt attraction bubbling inside her. He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer. “You are not frightened by me?”

Lori shook her head in denial. “No. Why would I be? You saved me. I’m very grateful to you. I don’t know why you were out on the swamps last night, but thank you for being there.”

“I was tracking hunters. They’ve been causing trouble in the shadowed marshes. Forgive me, you call them swamps. I am told the hunters are probably drunkards acting without thought of their actions. They sit on their boat at night and shoot toward the shore. They almost shot me more than once, and I worry they will injure the next person. I thought your boat might be theirs.” As if skeptical, he studied her carefully and questioned, “You feel it as well?”

Lori swallowed nervously at the abrupt change in conversation. She wanted to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about but couldn’t bring herself to play coy. There was something between them, a very real connection that snapped through her fingers each time they touched. She gave a very weak, single nod. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Here I am called Drake,” he stated. “Ursa found me in the swamps and thought it a fitting name. She said if I was to be Cajun I needed a new name that people could pronounce.”

“Ursa?” Lori wondered who this woman was to Drake. He had already mentioned her several times. It seemed strange that she would be jealous over someone she’d just met, but the feeling was there.

“She owns this property.”

“And elsewhere you are called?” She gave him a small smile.

“Dimosthenis,” he said, his accent thickening to make the word nearly impossible to attempt repeating. “But I am not to go by that anymore. I am Cajun now. That was my old life, and I left it behind.”

“Nice to meet you, Drake. I’m Lori Johnston.”

“We met last night and, it was not so nice,” he stated.

Lori made a weak noise, unable to fault the literal translation of his logic. “So do you live here with family?”

A wife maybe? The last thing she wanted was to be attracted to a taken man.

“I have no family. I am the last of my bloodline.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, again sensing the loneliness in his statement.

“Then I will not tell you more. I have no wish to say things that displease you.”

“No, I meant I’m sorry for your loss. It sounds by the tone of your voice that maybe you lost your family. You may tell me whatever you wish. I won’t tell you not to speak.” Lori started to reach for him but then pulled back.

“My family is dead. They did not make the journey to Louisiana with me. I left soon after my brother’s death. He was killed by a cat.”

“I’m sorry. It can’t be easy to lose someone without warning, like to an animal attack.”

“Why do you keep apologizing? None of these events was of your doing.” Drake eyed her. “Unless you believe you are a god?”

“Nope. Not a god.” Lori didn’t bother to further that course of the conversation. Instead, she gestured to his bandaged arm. The sock wraps had loosened. “Please, let me take you to a doctor to have your arm looked at. You saved my life last night. The least you can do is let me save yours today.”

He arched a brow.

“Infections can kill,” Lori explained. “It might not be as terrifying a foe as an alligator, but I’m not going back in that swamp anytime soon if you decide to go swimming.”

“It will be fine,” he stated. “You may save my life another time if you so wish. But I agree you should not go into the swamps. Flailing in mud is not an acceptable form of combat.”

Lori started to laugh, but Drake looked very earnest. “I’ll try my best to remember that,” she said.

“You were not trained very well. If you like, I will show you proper survival skills in case you are trapped again on an airboat in the swamps.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m pretty sure that won’t be happening again.” She wasn’t sure what the fates had in mind by bringing her to his doorstep, but she was very curious to see where their budding friendship might go. Even though he spoke in clipped words and had very solemn expressions, she felt as if she understood him on a natural, unspoken level.