Chapter 2
Rhys’s mate was more beautiful than he could ever have imagined her to be.
Cristina…
She was tall for a woman, possibly a couple of inches under six feet, and at least nine or ten inches shorter than his own six feet seven inches. Her long red hair was slightly disheveled, not surprising when her scent on the pillow said she had been in that warm bed when they entered the apartment. Her beautiful face was pale and dominated by a pair of dark gray eyes.
She was extremely slender, but even so, the camisole top she wore barely covered her pert breasts, and the boy shorts left the long length of her shapely legs completely bare. They were obviously the clothing Cristina favored wearing as nightclothes.
Rhys considered them completely unsuitable for his mate to wear in the presence of another man, even if that man was his own brother. He—
“Put the gun down, Cristina.” Aeran held up both his hands in a we-mean-you-no-harm gesture, his voice soothing.
Those dark gray eyes widened, but she kept the gun leveled on them. “How do you know my name?”
Aeran shrugged. “Finding out who people are is what I do best.” He lowered his hands and took a step forward.
Rhys reacted instinctively, moving to stand in front of Cristina, facing his brother, uncaring of the gun he now felt pressing into his back. It was more important that he protect Cristina, his dragon having perceived Aeran’s approach as a possible threat. “Don’t come any closer to Cristina,” Rhys warned him.
“Get away from her.” Aeran’s voice was just as low and threatening, amethyst-colored eyes glowing and his teeth bared. All signs, Rhys knew, that his brother was balanced on the edge of shifting into his dragon.
What the hell…?
“She’s my mate,” Aeran snarled.
“Mine.” Rhys felt his own partial shift: the extra, pointed teeth in his mouth, the scaling on his forehead and cheeks, his hands once again claws tipped with long talons.
Thankfully, Aeran was maintaining control over his dragon; otherwise, Cristina would now be looking at a man who more resembled the amethyst-colored dragon he shifted into.
“I won’t warn you again!” Aeran’s voice was guttural and low, more an animalistic growl than human.
Rhys was finding it difficult to think with Cristina’s insidious perfume invading his senses, deepening his need to mate her. Possess her. Claim her as his own. Except… “What the hell is going on, Aeran?”
“Just the question I want to ask both of you,” Cristina cut in firmly, feeling as if she were a tasty bone being argued over by two rabid dogs.
Which was ridiculous.
The fact these two men knew her name confirmed they had to be here to kill her.
Which meant her father must already be dead.
She had suspected it, of course, but having it confirmed made her feel sick, the tightness in her chest making it difficult to breathe. “How did you get through that door?” The man with short hair had shredded the steel-reinforced door as if it were paper.
“Wrong question, mate,” he drawled.
Mate? What the hell—? “Who are you, and what do you want?” She snapped her impatience with their strange behavior; after all, she was the one holding the gun.
Even if she would have difficulty actually using it. Her father might have insisted she go to a firing range and learn to shoot, but that didn’t mean she could actually squeeze the trigger and fire a bullet at a living person.
Thankfully, these two men didn’t know that.
“Answer me.” She pressed the gun even harder against Rhys’s back.
“I’m Rhys Pendragon, and that’s my brother Aeran,” he supplied tersely.
“And how do you know my— How do you know Cezar Fescaru?” She remembered in time not to call him her father, an association Cezar had kept a secret from everyone but Cristina herself.
She didn’t remember too much about the first four years of her life. The first things she remembered were the house she had lived in, with an elderly housekeeper and her son, Elena and Dumitru, who acted as caregiver and bodyguard. She’d received the occasional visit from another man who would take her out and buy her gifts before as suddenly disappearing again. Sometimes he didn’t return for months, and no amount of wheedling or pouting on Cristina’s part succeeded in breaking the vow of silence taken by Elena and Dumitru as to who and what he was to her.
By the time Cristina reached her teens, she was no longer willing to be fobbed off with anything but the truth. Which was when Cezar had finally told her he was her father.
By the time she reached eighteen, Cristina had refused to remain in Romania any longer, applying to an English university without telling her father and then just turning up at his apartment one day, carrying all her belongs with her.
To say her father was angry was to seriously understate the situation, and she soon learned the reason why. Cezar was the undisputed head of the Romanian Mafia in London, and by coming to England, she had opened up a weakness for him he would rather no one else knew about.
Because she was the daughter Cezar had long kept hidden from his rivals and associates alike.
It wasn’t until now, at this moment, that Cristina understood just how much of a weakness she was to him.
Or how much her own life was in danger if anyone should discover she was Cezar’s daughter.
“Well?” she snapped when neither man answered.
Aeran wasn’t quite sure what to say in regard to Cristina’s question.
That he and Rhys had been instrumental in bringing about her lover’s demise?
Maybe not directly, but certainly they had helped Nikolai Volkov in rounding up Fescaru’s men before the other man had them all killed. Nikolai had kept Fescaru alive for a little longer than his men, but once the Romanian told the Russian what he wanted to know, Fescaru had been eliminated too.
Because the coldhearted bastard had not only attempted to steal from the Russians, but he had also ordered the death of their brother Grigor’s mate. As his men had tried to kill Chloe, Nathaniel’s mate, when they came looking for Gayle.
Well… Yes, Fescaru had done those things.
Even so, Aeran doubted Cristina was going to feel particularly friendly toward anyone involved in bringing about the death of her lover.
Even if the thought of Cristina being Fescaru’s mistress made Aeran feel sick to his stomach.
“I don’t think that question is of particular relevance right now.” Rhys was the one to answer her—tactfully, for once, thank God, because tact really wasn’t Rhys’s forte. His face had also completely returned to its human form, his hands no longer claws and talons as he slowly turned to face Cristina. “We need to get you away from here before either the Russians, or more likely the Romanians, discover you here. Both of whom will torture any information out of you before killing you.”
Yep, that was the tactless brother Aeran knew and loved.
Cristina’s face had paled. “You don’t belong to either of those associations?”
“No,” Aeran soothed.
“Then I repeat, who the hell are you?”
“You will not swear nor will you show disrespect, mate,” Rhys snapped.
“I’ll say whatever the hell I choose!” Her eyes flashed a darker gray. “Considering I’m the one holding the loaded gun, I believe I have that right.”
Aeran barely had time to register the challenge in her tone before Rhys reached out and easily took the gun from Cristina’s hand. He then proceeded to bend the metal barrel back on itself, rendering it completely ineffectual as a weapon.
Cristina gaped as Rhys dropped the now useless piece of metal onto the desktop. “How did you do that?”
Rhys bit back the reply he wanted to make: that Cristina was his mate, and in future she would learn to do as she was told or suffer the consequences.
He knew from observing his brothers and their human mates that Cristina was to be cherished and loved. But to show disrespect to him, her mate, was unacceptable, and Rhys would punish Cristina as he felt necessary. Primarily by placing her over his knee and spanking her arse until she learned never to disobey him again.
An arse which was currently barely covered by those revealing boy shorts.
Rhys took hold of the bottom of his black T-shirt and pulled it off over his head. “Cover yourself, woman.” He thrust the T-shirt at her, knowing it was long enough and big enough to cover her down to her knees.
Her nose wrinkled, and she made no move to take the cotton clothing. “Ew, you were just wearing that!”
“You will be covered in far more of mine than a T-shirt before the night is over,” he assured her with satisfaction, intending to mark her with his scent by covering her in his cum the moment they were alone together.
“Rhys.”
He turned to scowl at Aeran, eyes widening as he saw how his brother was struggling to maintain control of his dragon. Aeran’s eyes were once again glowing, his jaw clamped so tightly, he looked in danger of breaking it.
“We have a problem,” Aeran finally rasped through gritted teeth. “A serious fucking problem.”
“Such as…?”
“Such as Cristina is my mate!” his brother snapped.
“She’s mine.” Rhys took a possessive grasp of Cristina’s arm and pulled her to his side.
“Don’t force me to hurt you, Rhys,” Aeran warned in a soft voice totally at odds with the fury burning in his eyes as he stared at Rhys’s fingers about Cristina’s arm. “Release her. Now. And then step away.”
Aeran was right, Rhys realized. Something was seriously fucked up about this situation.
Rhys wasn’t in Wales as often as his brothers, preferring to work away from home as much as possible, but nevertheless, he’d had opportunity to observe his brothers with their mates during the past eighteen months.
He had seen their possessiveness.
Heard their warning growls if anyone touched or went too close to their mate.
Witnessed the violence in their expression if they felt their mate was under threat in any way.
Aeran was currently displaying all those emotions.
Because Cristina was also his mate?
That wasn’t possible.
There had never, to Rhys’s knowledge, been a single mate for two dragon shifters.
Because dragons didn’t share.
Ever.
That rule applied a hundred, a thousandfold, when applied to their mate.
And yet there was no mistaking that Aeran was as deeply affected by Cristina’s presence and scent as Rhys was.
The erection visible in Aeran’s jeans said his brother was as desperate to mate her as Rhys was.
Cristina was tired of feeling like that bone these two men were fighting over. “I think you should know that I don’t want to mate with either of you.” Her cheeks burned with a mixture of anger and embarrassment that these two men should refer to sex in such a primitive way. Mating, for God’s sake. They sounded like a couple of cavemen arguing over the only female left in the tribe. “In fact, I think it best if you both just leave before my— Before Cezar returns.” She saw the two men exchange a glance that was too quick for her to decipher. “Unless you know something I don’t?”
The one called Rhys gave a scathing snort. “Little girl, we both know things that would render you speechless.”
Little girl?
“Okay, that’s it, Neanderthal Man.” Cristina wrenched her arm free of Rhys’s fingers, uncaring of the bruises it would no doubt cause on the paleness of her skin. “You either leave now or I’m going to call the police.” It was an empty threat, but perhaps these two men didn’t know that.
“Neanderthal Man?” Aeran’s lips twitched as if he was holding back a smile.
Rhys looked less amused. “The number of times I’m going to spank your arse is rising by the minute. Now put the fucking T-shirt on and cover yourself so we can get out of here.” He thrust the black garment toward her.
“Spank me…?” Cristina spluttered, once again making no effort to take the T-shirt.
No one had ever dared…
Elena and Dumitru had been strict but fair during Cristina’s childhood, and Cezar had spoiled her whenever he came to visit. After his initial anger, Cezar had been even more indulgent once she moved to London. But none of those people in her life had ever even suggested spanking her, and yet this giant of a man, this handsome giant of a man, Cristina acknowledged grudgingly, was threatening to do so within minutes of having met her.
She turned to Aeran, who seemed the more reasonable of the two. “Could you get him back under control and put him back on his leash? Or I really will have to call the police and have the two of you forcibly removed rather than allowing you to leave voluntarily.”
“I am going nowhere without—”
“Rhys.” Aeran cut quietly into his brother’s harsh protest. “She doesn’t understand, okay? You’re frightening her with your caveman act.”
Those pale blue-green eyes narrowed in warning. “Do not attempt to tell me how to behave toward my mate.”
“But that’s the whole point, Rhys. She’s my mate too,” Aeran reasoned.
“Not possible,” Rhys insisted.
“I didn’t think so either.” Aeran sighed. “But right now, I want to rip your throat out for even having dared to touch her.”
“What is with you two?” Cristina was tired of being talked about as if she were an object both these men wanted to own. “I said I don’t want to mate with either of you, so you might as well stop fighting over me as if I’m some sort of possession up for grabs. If my—Cezar were here, he would have had both of you shot by now.” She gave a remorseful glance at the destroyed gun, still unsure how Rhys had bent the piece of metal as if it was plastic.
Rhys bared his teeth at the mention of his mate’s previous lover. “As your lover is in all probability at the bottom of a concrete pillar right now, along with all his men, that might be— What the hell…?” he rasped as all the color drained from Cristina’s cheeks, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she would have fallen to the floor if Aeran hadn’t stepped forward and caught her.
Aeran glared at him over Cristina’s limp body. “You insensitive idiot!”
“Give her to me,” Rhys bit out between clenched teeth as he stepped forward.
“Absolutely not.” Aeran held Cristina all the tighter against him. “Of the two of us, I believe I’m the one most in control right now, which means my dragon is going to be the one to carry her back to Wales with us.”
“No—”
“Back off, Rhys.” Aeran’s warning was savage, his dragon’s teeth bared. “We can discuss whose mate she is once we’re back at the castle. For now, I think we need to get out of here and back to Wales while Cristina is still unconscious.”
Rhys could see the logic of that even through the mating haze, but that didn’t mean he had to like having Aeran holding his mate.