Dragon's Promise

Of more importance had been the feeling that his interest in her was purely physical—an interest that she welcomed with relief. Because of a vow to her mother, she hadn’t fed in over a month, and now blood flowed through her veins like a thick, slow-moving sludge. The lethargy weighing her down was nearly unbearable; she needed something—someone—to refill her life force.

The fastest, easiest way to gain the life-giving power she needed to survive was to simply suck the force from another being. However, that required her to know when to stop before completely draining the donor, and right now her hunger would make that nearly impossible.

But the most pleasurable way to obtain what she needed, the fairest way for the other participant and the longest-lasting method was through hot, intense sex. Finding a willing partner wasn’t a problem, since as a succubus, men and women were always drawn to her whether she summoned the attraction or not. Unfortunately, most humans didn’t possess enough life force, or the driving need—a near-insatiable hunger—to survive mating with her.

Hence the reason for promising her mother that she’d refrain from feeding on them—again. Since this man wasn’t human, he stood a better chance of living through the event.

The old cliché “killing two birds with one stone” came to mind. She would still be honoring her parents’ request by not seeking out a human, and by morning she might gain enough life force to last weeks.

She raised the glass to her lips and then paused before putting the drink back on the bar without taking a sip. Already weak and slow, Caitlin knew the booze would only make her feel worse. She’d come in here as a last resort, looking for a donor, not to get drunk.

Now that she’d found what she wanted—what she so desperately needed—it was time to go. Not for one second did she worry about him finding her. She’d strategically leave enough of her scent lingering in the air that he’d find the way to her home with ease.

* * *

“Aren’t you a hot little thing?”

Hot? Always. Little? Caitlin resisted rolling her eyes at that description. She hadn’t been a little thing since she’d hit just under six foot tall at age twelve.

A yellowish glare from the streetlight at the end of the alley danced in the droplets of sleet rolling down the thug’s drawn blade. She forgot about his comment and took another step back from the two men stalking her, luring them farther into the dark alley.

They’d been in the booth behind the changeling at the bar. She’d heard their crude comments when she’d entered, felt them watching her when she’d left the bar, and she’d seen their reflections in the smoked-glass window as they followed her out. She’d expected him to follow her, but these two were another story.

With a quick touch of her mind to the humans, she discovered that while their goal also included sex, it wasn’t the passionate kind they wanted. She quirked an eyebrow at their stupidity and kept walking backward.

They had corralled her into the alley a block away from the bar where no one would see them—mistakenly thinking she was an easy target. She might be drained, but her tired muscles and slow reactions would still be more than enough to handle these two.

One man swung a knife at her, laughing as she jumped back from what he thought was a lethal blade.

“Yeah. Come on, cut her, cut her.” The smaller of the two men squealed like a child. From the glassiness of his eyes, the lack of meat on his bones and the jerkiness of his movements, he was obviously juiced on something more than beer.

The changeling with a body even she would die for approached frowning, but said nothing to stop the other two men. He hung back. A quizzical expression drew his brows together as if he was waiting for something.

“Do you want my help?” She jerked slightly at the intrusion of his silent query.

“No.” Caitlin scoffed at his offer, adding, “You know damn well that help with these two isn’t what I want from you.”

Once again he gave her a smile full of promises and passion.

She drew her full attention to the thug with the blade, and because the question was usually expected in these situations, she asked, “What do you want?”

Knife man smiled. “Why, darlin’, we want you.”

Of course he did. Everyone wanted her whether the desire was mutual or not. Caitlin shrugged out of her unzipped jacket, letting the buttery-soft black leather hit the wet pavement. “Oh, big boy, all you had to do was ask.”

Her unexpected, brazen comment stopped them in their tracks. Only the twitching drughead seemed upset by the sudden turn of events. But his most dangerous response was to twitch faster.

Needing just a drop of energy before taking on these two humans, she reached out with her mind and touched the junkie, recoiling instantly from the contamination and disease he carried deep in his soul. No way in hell would she place a finger on him and risk poisoning herself needlessly.

She focused on the knife wielder. He possessed a vile darkness that wouldn’t kill her, but it would eventually make her physically ill. From their encounter in the bar, she knew the changeling would give her the opportunity to heal herself long before she became sick.

The blade sliced through her silky tank top and across her rib cage as the thug closed his hand boldly around her left breast. “Teasing will get you killed.”

Caitlin didn’t flinch at the knife tip’s burn. The lost blood would soon be replenished, and the cut would heal momentarily. And while his hold on her body irritated her, it didn’t hurt.

But he’d ruined her favorite top. That was completely unacceptable.

She tilted her head and smiled before placing the palm of her hand against his cheek. “Teasing?”

The knife fell from his hand, his pupils dilated and he moaned raggedly with a sudden, unexpected flare of lust. Humans were just so damn easy. She threaded her fingers through his dark, greasy hair. Resisting the urge to shiver with disgust, she cupped the back of his head and drew him closer, whispering, “I would never tease about anything as important as a new top.”

When their lips nearly met, she exhaled softly, filling him with mindless desire and near-excruciating need.

His eyelids fluttered closed—he was hers to do with as she willed. Caitlin tightened her hold and inhaled almost every last ounce of his life-giving force until he whimpered like a little girl.

“Enough.”

The preternatural’s one-word command shocked her into releasing her grip on the human. She let him drop to the pavement like a rock. Nobody outside her parents, or the royal circle of elders, gave her orders. Who did he think he was?

The junkie stared down at his buddy in open-mouthed shock. Jerking his head and shoulders, he screamed, “What? What the hell did you do?”

Mr. To Die For popped the little guy on the jaw and dropped him with one hit.

Caitlin staggered, gasping in confusion and worry at her sudden inability to function, or focus. She’d known she would be ill from sucking the life out of the thug. But not this quickly, never this fast. This wasn’t normal. Something was wrong. Her heart thudded fast and hard inside her chest. What was happening to her? What was so different this time around?

She stumbled and then bounced off the garbage Dumpster. Just great. Her parents would be so pissed off if she went and got herself killed now.

“Come here.” The male she’d wanted pulled her against him right before she collapsed into a puddle. Cupping her chin, he tipped her head up and brought his lips close to hers. “Eat. Drink. Whatever it is you do.”

She weakly slung an arm around his neck. “How romantic.”

“Yeah, that’s me, Mr. Romance at your service. Shut up and feed.”

“Not a vampire.” Her words sounded disjointed to her ears.

“No shit.”

Caitlin’s stomach cramped; her legs shook. Had he not been holding her so securely, she wouldn’t have remained on her feet for much longer.

When her arm slipped from around his neck to dangle uselessly, she knew there’d be no way she’d be able to exhale anything from him. Hoping his intent was truly to help her, she whispered, “Kiss me.”

The first touch of his lips against hers sent a lightning-charged zing of energy clear to her toes. She sighed with the most exquisite longing, forgetting even to draw in his energy as she reveled in the utter completeness of the moment for a split second before darkness overtook her.

* * *

Caitlin’s first awareness was the feel of cool, satiny-smooth sheets against her flesh. Her second was that she felt more alive than she had in months. She opened her eyes and gazed into the grassy-green depths of the eyes staring back at her.

“Morning, Red.”

Normally, that clichéd endearment would send her ire skyrocketing, but his voice was so deep, his overused, outdated greeting so easy and familiar that for the first time in her life, she felt her face flush with embarrassment. His one-sided smile—a seductive, knowing smirk—only lent more heat to her cheeks.

Confused by her odd reaction, she asked, “Where am I?”

“According to your directions, you’re home. If not, then we’ve invaded someone else’s privacy for the past three days.”

Three days!

She sat up quickly, glancing around to make certain she truly was home. The deep forest green of the walls were adorned not with any feminine ornamentation, but with only the tools of her trade—a centuries-old broad sword and a pair of even more ancient crossed daggers—mounted near the door let her know they were indeed in her bedroom. No other woman would have decorated their bedroom in such a manner. Satisfied with her location, she held the sheet tightly to her neck. “Three days? What have I been doing?”

“If you don’t know, then I haven’t given it my all.” He sighed then chuckled softly and drew a fingertip down her spine. “Feeding.”

For three days? And she couldn’t remember any of it? She was in bed with a man who possessed the chiseled body and face of a Greek god and she couldn’t remember the feel of his body on, or in, hers? Either she’d lost her mind, or he was some type of preternatural she’d never met before.

She closed her eyes tightly, trying desperately to remember. Then slowly, bit by bit, the fog started to clear, permitting snippets of their time together to trickle into her mind.

They’d met in a bar and had been attracted to each other from the beginning.

His inner animal—the part that made him preternatural—had marked her. She wasn’t certain why it had done so, only that for some reason it had chosen her. More importantly, she hadn’t turned him away.

Images of the thugs in the alley floated through her mind. When she’d become sick immediately after draining the one attacker, this man, the one now in her bed, had been there to catch her before she fell to the wet pavement. He’d given her energy—his own life force, without question.

A shiver of lust raced down her spine as more, broken bits of memories poured forth. Not quite visual memories, but more like remembered feelings. The warmth of his mind-robbing kiss as his tongue had swept across hers. And the certainty of his touch when he’d stroked and caressed her to a fevered pitch that left her gasping for air and wanting so much more.

All of this was so foreign to her, so strange. She’d never let a man into her bedroom. She’d never been so swept away by a kiss that she’d lost the ability to think. She’d never met a man who could willingly fill her life force and live.

Never before had she desired, longed for, lusted after a man who possessed an inner strength that was on a level she couldn’t quite understand, and while it excited her, it also frightened her.

Though she could remember the feel of his touch, the taste of his kiss, she couldn’t pull his name from her memories. It was an odd time to ask, but she wanted to know.

Caitlin took a breath, looked at him and asked, “Who are you?”

He tugged on the sheet, dragging it down to her waist, and sat up far enough to slide his tongue along the curve of her breast. “Ladies first.”

She shivered. How many times had he done that the last few days? Caitlin swallowed her moan. Had she enjoyed it as much as she did now? “Caitlin St. George.”

The man froze, his eyes widening for a split second before he moved away from her. His smile faded into a deep, menacing laugh, wiping away her desire to lean in to his caress.

Fear slid in behind her lingering passion, pushing it away, flowing over the warmth to bury it with a cold, foreboding chill. Maybe she should have asked what he was, instead of who.

Before she could part her lips to voice her question, he shifted into the form of a smoky dragon and was gone.

Chapter 2

Dragon’s Lair, Drakes’ Resort in East Tennessee—today

“Sean, we have a problem.”

Without taking his attention away from the lines of coding on his monitor, Sean reached out to absently hit the button on the intercom. “What now?”

“The security alerts are going insane. Again.”

“Be right there.” He saved the program he’d been debugging, shrugged into his suit jacket and headed out of the private office in his suite.

Sean reminded himself to be patient. Harold was doing the best he could. The security tech had called in sick this morning, and he didn’t have time to sit and watch the monitors himself.

The rest of the family had left for the family’s medieval stronghold on Mirabilus Isle a few days ago, and he wasn’t about to call either of his brothers, or his aunt, home for something this minor. Not when this was the first time since his return they’d left him in complete charge of the Lair.

So when Harold, the family’s right-hand man, sometimes chauffeur, mechanic and occasional handyman, had volunteered to watch the cameras, Sean had accepted his help.

Of course, today was the day when everything that could go wrong, did. Now, for the third time this morning, Sean’s new tweaks to the system were having fits.

Walking into the basement security room, Sean glanced at the half-round bank of monitors. “Which one now?”

“The lobby.” Harold rose and moved out of the inner circle.

Well, at least it wasn’t in the kitchen again. Sean sat down and swiveled the task chair back around to glance at the screen to the lobby.

The temperature bar at the bottom of the monitor was blinking red—something very hot, or on fire, was in the lobby. He knew if he turned the sound on, that the alarm would be barking in time with the blinks.

“I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.” Harold leaned over his shoulder, pointing at the check-in counter. “But it went off when she entered.”

A woman stood at the counter. Either the modified alarm system was a total bust, or it was finally doing its job correctly.

Sean tapped in another view of the counter and cursed softly.

The system was working just as it should—monitoring the temperature of the guests’ bodies and alerting the security staff to the presence of a nonhuman.

She hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen her. A little paler, with lines of distress marring her forehead, making her appear drained and weak. Shadows of worry framed her amber eyes. If anything, her apparent vulnerability made her more enticing now than before. Caitlin St. George—the magic dragon slayer—was checking in to Dragon’s Lair.

When she’d first told him her name, he had gotten the impression that she didn’t realize what her name even meant. But then, since he’d refused her entry into his thoughts, she hadn’t known who, or what, he was, so there’d been no reason for her to put two and two together.

Actually, other than her name—which could be nothing more than a strange coincidence—he’d had no reason to vanish the way he had. Granted, she was a St. George and he a Drake—the dragon slayer and the dragon—but as far as he knew, the days of killing dragons had ended centuries ago.

Yet at hearing her name, something sharp and menacing had poked at his dragon, enraging it beyond reason. So he’d done the only thing he could upon discovering he’d been sleeping with what his beast seemed to distrust—laughed at the complete irony of the situation and then vanished from her life.

What was she doing here at the Lair? Something was obviously wrong. But why would she come to him? After the way he’d deserted her so abruptly, it made no sense for her to be here.

Sean cleared the event from the system and reset the lobby’s alarm. “There you go, Harold. It’s all reset now.”

The man frowned at him and asked, “Who is she?”

He brushed by Harold, answering on his way to the elevator, “An old friend.”

“How old?”

Sean knew what Harold was asking in his roundabout way. He wanted to know if this was someone he’d met during those long, endless months his family all referred to as “Sean’s dark time.”

Knowing Harold wouldn’t like the answer and that the man wouldn’t be able to keep the information to himself, Sean hit the close button on the elevator’s panel and said, “I met her at a bar in town.” It wasn’t exactly a lie—he had met her at a bar, in a town, just not a bar in this town.

Checking his reflection in the smoke-tinted mirrored wall, he straightened his tie and raked his fingers through his hair. Why his appearance mattered was beyond him. It wasn’t as if his beast was going to let either of them remain dressed for long.

Stepping out of the elevator when it stopped a floor above, he crossed the resort’s lobby, almost missing a step as a nearly forgotten bolt of raw lust surged through him, awakening the slumbering dragon within.

He could feel the beast turn its head to stare intently at the woman. He heard the ragged chuff as it picked up her scent and recognized the mate it had hungered for, yet oddly wanted to avoid.

He rolled his neck, fighting the urge to give in to the heated desires washing through him and leaned over the counter next to Caitlin to tell the clerk, “I’ve got this one, Brandy. Give me a suite key on thirteen.” He glanced at the floor, then asked, “Do you have any bags?”

St. George was cool, collected—unlike her response at their last encounter. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even bat an eyelash. However, she stared at him, her eyes shimmering, and swallowed hard, apparently as affected by his presence as he was by hers. “My luggage is in the car. I don’t need a room, but we do need to talk.”

Sean placed the keycard back on the counter and nodded toward the row of elevator doors. “If you’ll follow me?”

She seemed hesitant, not moving until he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Red, I’d really hate to embarrass both of us right here in the lobby.”

That, too, was a lie. At this minute he didn’t care where they were, or who was around. He wanted nothing more than to shred the clothes from her body with his talons and taste every delectable inch of her naked flesh.

Beneath his touch he felt her flare of lust roar to life, only to cool just as quickly. Sean wasn’t fooled by her controlled disinterest—it was a method of self-preservation that she’d obviously learned, and perfected, during this last year.

Damn shame, actually.

She let him guide her to the elevator. Once the door slid closed behind them, he moved in, stalking her, backing her into a corner. “Welcome to Dragon’s Lair.”

She pushed against his chest. “I said we need to talk.”

Talking was the furthest thing from his mind. Sean leaned against her, his chest pressing into the softness of her breasts. He narrowed his eyes as the heat of her body drifted into his. “Talk about what?”

“You do remember what I am, don’t you?”

With a soft throaty growl, Sean nodded. “Yeah, mine.”

“Really? Your abrupt departure said the exact opposite. Trust me, I am not yours.”

Sean settled his thighs more firmly against hers and feathered his lips against her neck. “You’ll soon forget that I ever left so hastily.”

Caitlin closed her eyes at the reminder of their last encounter. It had taken days, but eventually all of her memories had flooded back and she’d remembered every second of the time they’d spent in her bed.

She hadn’t been as uninvolved as she’d first hoped. In fact, if her memories were accurate, she’d urged him on a time or three and had begged—begged!—him to stop teasing her, to end his achingly hot torment of her body more than once.

Never before had any man satisfied her so completely—and lived.

Her body seemed to hum as it, too, remembered and hungered for a command performance. She placed her hands flat on his chest, biting back a sigh at the feel of his muscles beneath her palms. “Please.”

He clasped both of her hands with one of his own and dragged them down the length of his chest and past his waist. “You don’t need to beg—at least not right now. We can save that for later.”

When he bent his head to once again feed her shivers with his lips, she turned slightly and sank her fangs into his neck.

He pulled free from her bite, still smiling. “New trick?”

“A gift from my father. You should be grateful that unlike him, I don’t suck blood.”

“Oh, sweetheart, there isn’t anything you could do to me that I wouldn’t like.”

“Sean, please.” She shoved him farther away and paced along the back of the elevator. “I’m not here on a pleasure run. I need your help.”

Her worry settled cold in his blood, effectively cooling the wayward desire. He watched her carefully. Her stride as she paced was brisk and determined. Yet she repeatedly curled and uncurled her fingers while shooting him brief darting glances. Nervousness was mixed in with her worry.

Sean silently swore. How did he so instinctively know that without delving into her mind? What was this thing between them? Why the instant attraction before and again now, and why did he so easily pick up on her moods? And why was his beast so conflicted between desiring her and wanting to tear her to shreds?

The only thing he understood about any of it was that he didn’t like it—at all. It was an interruption in his life that he didn’t need right now. This was something he couldn’t control. And the safety of his family and his own life depended on his ability to control the vile urges demanding their deaths that still haunted him at times.

Without looking, he reached over and hit the stop button. When the elevator bounced gently to a halt, he asked, “I haven’t heard from you in nearly a year, what sort of help do you think I’d be willing to offer?”

She paused to look at him with narrowed eyes. “I gave up trying to contact you after about four months.”

“I never received a call or any other contact from you.”

“If by other contact you mean telepathy, I can’t do that unless I can see you. So summoning you with my mind was out of the question. Since you’d shifted into a dragon, it wasn’t that hard to guess your identity. There aren’t that many dragon clans left, and the way you reacted to hearing my name made it fairly obvious you were a Drake. After that, finding the phone number to Dragon’s Lair was easy.” She resumed pacing, her arms crossed against her body. “Unfortunately, I kept getting the wrong Drake. I spoke to your aunt. The last time I called she told me that you were recently engaged and to leave you alone.” The look she turned on him was frigid. “So I did.”

He felt her rising anger. However, it was nothing compared to his own. Engaged? That was the best Aunt Dani could devise? “When was this?”

Caitlin shook her head and sighed as if bored with this conversation. “The first time was about a month after you disappeared from my bedroom.”

She’d called while he was still debating whether to come home or not. Which explains why he had never received word that she’d called. However, he’d returned to the Lair shortly after that, so why hadn’t his aunt mentioned the calls?