CHAPTER 3
Loke stared off to his right at the mouth of the cave, searching for a way to improve the relationship between him and his ward, and stop himself from surrendering to the darker instincts that were beginning to wake inside him. He wanted her and had done since first setting eyes on her, he would never deny that, but he would also never seek to possess her in the traditional ways of a dragon. She wasn’t an object to be owned or a slave to be taken against her will.
She was beautiful and fierce. She was a little Amazon. A warrior.
That side of her both fascinated and concerned him. It drew him to her but pushed him away at the same time. He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t strong. She was mortal. A weak species. He had proven that by hurting her without ever realising it.
He cursed himself and swiftly stood, intending to apologise to her. When he risked looking back down at her, her deep blue eyes were on the tunnels to his left again. Maybe there was a way to make her feel more comfortable in his home. She did seem very interested in the tunnels.
“Come. You must be hungry. I will show you the larder.” He held his hand out to her but she didn’t take it.
She rose to her feet and he looked back at the cave mouth while she dressed, giving her some privacy.
“It’s probably just because you think I’ll run off the moment you turn your back,” she muttered.
Loke smiled. “It had crossed my mind.”
She swept her arm out towards the tunnels. “Lead the way.”
He decided that would also be unwise, so he opted for walking beside her. On her left. So she couldn’t grab his knife he had sheathed against his left hip.
When he reached the fire, he picked up the wooden torch he kept near it, lit it and held it ahead of them, illuminating the path.
“In my world, we have things called torches… but they’re powered by batteries.”
“Batteries?” He looked down at her and caught her staring at his bare chest. His heart missed a beat as fire swept through his veins and he had to battle to bring it back under control.
Her gaze leaped away from him and her cheeks darkened. “Tiny power cells. We use them to run all kinds of electronic equipment.”
“Electronic?” He tried to focus on their conversation and his curiosity about her world, using it to shut out the temptation to shift closer to her. He wouldn’t cross that line. No matter how fiercely he desired her. She was under his protection only until the time came when he received word that the battle was over and she could return to her people. He meant to keep his promises.
Perhaps his desire to understand her was too dangerous to indulge. He feared that if he came to understand the sylph beside him, he would be done for, no longer able to keep his distance from her. It was better she remained a mystery then and he interacted with her as little as possible.
His dragon instincts roared to the fore, pushing back against that idea. Leaving her as a mystery meant denying his curiosity about her. It meant not learning about her world and her life as a mortal. She was his chance to gain knowledge about a world he could never venture into, no matter how fiercely he wanted to see it. He needed to hear her tales, her first-hand accounts of everything the mortal world had to offer.
Loke scrubbed his free hand through his hair, grasping the longer lengths and tugging them back until his scalp stung.
Everything about her was impossible.
She was impossible to understand as she leaped between polar emotions in a heartbeat. Impossible to comprehend as he pitted the fact she was mortal against the knowledge she was a warrior. Impossible to ignore as she huffed beside him and he felt her gaze briefly touch on his body again.
Impossible to resist.
Loke glanced down at her, his eyes straying to her despite his attempt to keep them locked on the tunnels ahead of them.
She looked unimpressed and he was coming to hate seeing that expression on her face because it made him feel inadequate.
“You seriously don’t know what electricity is?” She rolled her eyes and sighed emphatically again. “Heaven help me.”
“I do not think the angels will help you, Little Amazon. They cannot venture into Hell as far as I know.”
She stopped dead and he walked a few steps, her gaze boring into his back, before halting too and looking over his shoulder at her. Her stunned expression drew a smile from him and lightened his mood, chasing away the ache in his head and lifting him out of the mire of his conflicting desires.
“Angels?” she whispered, a touch of fascination in her voice.
He grinned now. “Ah, it would seem it is my turn to sigh ever so dramatically.”
Her face darkened into a scowl. “Whatever. I’m sure if there were angels, Archangel would know about them.”
She had mentioned Archangel before, when she had called herself a demon-hunter. The other female he had met in the battle, the one with black hair, had called herself such a thing too. It made sense for that female. She had been powerful.
His little Amazon was not.
Yet she apparently hunted immortals. A foolish venture for a mortal. He was surprised she had survived to her current age.
He wasn’t sure what age that was, or how many cycles of the earth around the sun it took for a mortal to grow to adulthood, and he wasn’t about to ask her. She would sigh again and right now he had the upper hand and he was enjoying it.
“Angels exist.” He made it a statement, so she didn’t question it.
It didn’t stop her. “So where are they? Why haven’t I met one? I’ve been hunting for years and I’ve never met one.”
“You would most likely be dead if you met one of the breed who make Hell their home. Fallen angels are dangerous prey, Little Amazon. You must not approach or engage them.”
He must have looked serious because she didn’t argue. Instead, her eyes took on a shimmer of curiosity.
“You’ve met a fallen angel?”
He nodded. “And barely escaped with my life… but it was long ago and I am stronger now. I am confident I could hold my own against one if I ever meet another.”
She ran her gaze over him, a wave of heat following it, scalding him wherever she lingered, and then raised her eyes back to his. “How long ago?”
Loke thought about that as he began walking again, leading the way towards the tunnel. He gave up searching for a definite answer and shrugged as he made a guess. “Around four thousand years ago. Give or take a few centuries. It is difficult to remember.”
She stopped again and he sighed. If she kept stopping whenever he said something that astounded her, they were going to take hours to reach the larder.
“Four thousand years. Blimey. Prince Loren is around five thousand years old or something like that according to—”
“Prince Loren… of the elves?” Loke ignored her scowl but noted she didn’t like being interrupted. “You know him?”
She nodded and his eyebrow quirked.
He had known they had fought on the same side in the battle between the Third and Fifth realms of the demons, but he hadn’t expected her to know royalty. It surprised him that the prince of elves had worked directly with her people rather than allowing one of his commanders to do such a low and menial task in his place.
“He’s getting married to one of our scientists,” she said with a smile. “Something about Olivia being his mate.”
Olivia. He frowned at that name. The black-haired female had mentioned it, stating how Olivia would love to study him. A scientist. He knew of science in the sense they meant it. Studying. Cutting open creatures to see their insides and gain knowledge of them. He curled his lip at his little Amazon, flashing a hint of fang.
She planted her hands on her hips. “I don’t recall saying or doing anything to deserve that sort of look.”
“Speak not of scientists and mates. It is a ridiculous notion that the prince of elves would find a mate in such a weak species.”
“Well, it happened… like Sable is probably going to get hitched to King Thorne.” She stormed past him and he was the one standing still and staring at her in astonishment now.
“King Thorne has a mate too?”
She nodded and looked over her shoulder at him. “You met her. She trod on your throat.”
He rubbed the front of it and pinned her with a black look as he recalled the dark-haired huntress. “She was strong. A worthy mate for a demon king.”
Her pretty face darkened, her fair eyebrows dropping low above her deep blue eyes, and she turned on him. “Strength comes from more than the body, you know? It comes from in here too.”
She pressed her hand between her breasts.
“Strength of heart does not make you strong, Little Amazon. It does not stop a blade from slicing your throat open.” He stepped towards her, closing the gap between them, and swept his fingers in a straight line just inches from her delicate throat as he stared down into her eyes. “It does not make you a match for one of our kind. Physical weakness cannot be overcome by emotional strength. A mortal is a poor match for an immortal. It would be far too easy to harm you by mistake.”
He swept past her, leaving her to follow, and paused only when he reached the mouth of the tunnel that led to the larder.
She stood where he had left her, staring at him, a myriad of emotions crossing her face and colouring her eyes, clashing and colliding, but through them all one rose.
She straightened her spine, tilted her chin up, and clenched her fists at her sides as her lips compressed into a mulish line.
“You know nothing about mortals. Physical strength isn’t everything. Without emotion… without heart… you’re nothing but barbarians. But I should’ve known that you were a barbarian… after all… you act like one.” She stormed past him again and didn’t slow this time.
She marched ahead of him into the darkness and he let her, even though he wanted to argue with her. He scrubbed his free hand over his face and held back his sigh. Perhaps he had been too hard on her kind. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to say those things to her, pointing out the differences between mortals and immortals. The thought that the prince of elves had been given a mortal female as a fated mate, and that King Thorne of the Third Realm had also received one, had set him on edge for some reason.
Loke watched her stomping towards the edge of the reach of the light from his torch.
If she kept marching blind as she was now, she was going to trip over something and hurt herself. He quickened his pace, eating up the distance between them with long-legged strides, and only slowed when he was within a few feet of her. She muttered things beneath her breath and he caught his name from time to time.
The larder came into view ahead of them and she finally slowed down, her head turning this way and that as she took it in. He had carved shelves into the black walls of the small round cave many centuries ago, allowing him to keep his food off the floor, where bugs were prone to nibble on it.
He placed the wooden torch in the diagonal shaft he had hacked into the rock near the entrance of the larder and picked up the iron cauldron he had traded from a witch in the free realm. He placed his only metal bowl and a wooden spoon down inside it, and then set about gathering the items he needed for their meal.
“Eww, what is that. Tell me you don’t eat that.”
He turned to find Anais pointing at a lump of white fat he had carved off an old Hell beast, one of the kind with horns and talons. It had been a difficult battle. He could have easily won if he had resorted to using his dragon form, but his kind preferred to hunt in their mortal appearance. They relished the challenge and the chance to test their skills against a larger foe.
Loke shook his head. “I do not eat that. I use it for fuel.”
“For the fire?” She looked back towards the exit. “And the torches I guess?”
He nodded this time. “It helps. I eat this.”
He picked up a skinned side of Hell beast, around a quarter of the original carcass, with the front left limb and ribs intact, and she looked as if she might vomit.
She swiftly covered her mouth and turned away from him.
Would he ever understand her?
She claimed to be strong, but when faced with a butchered creature, she paled and looked ready to flee. He was beginning to wonder whether she had ever taken a life during her battles. Surely a female who couldn’t look at a piece of meat was incapable of taking a life?
“I think I might be vegetarian,” she muttered into her palm.
Loke wasn’t sure what that meant but he didn’t like the sound of it. “I will make a stew from the leg.”
“What does it taste like?” She peeked over her shoulder at it. “Does it taste like beef or maybe lamb? I’m not big on lamb.”
Beef. Lamb. He presumed these were creatures of the mortal world.
He shrugged. “I am afraid I cannot compare it with something from your realm as I have never been there.”
She frowned and shifted to face him, her fear of the carcass evidently forgotten. “You haven’t left Hell?”
He shook his head. “No dragons leave Hell… so you see I cannot offer you a comparison to ease your mind… but it tastes good.”
“I think I’ll have to be the judge of that. If it does, I’ll tell the world… there’s a bachelor in Hell who can cook.” She paused and ran another glance over him, rekindling the fire in his veins. “You are a bachelor? I figured you were since this cave doesn’t look like the sort of place where a lady dragon would live. It lacks a female’s touch.”
Loke bit back a groan.
His cave wasn’t the only thing that lacked a female’s touch. He had been lacking that for a long time.
His gaze fell to her hands and he was wondering what her touch would feel like before he could stop himself. He tried to shake away the image of her running her palms over his bare chest, making him burn with a soft caress, but it was impossible. He had invited the images into his mind, had opened himself to them, and they flooded him, refusing to go away.
He was vaguely aware that he was standing in the larder, staring at her like a complete dolt and asking for another kick to the groin.
Anais snapped her fingers in front of his face and he jerked backwards, blinking at her.
“I don’t want to know what you were thinking, but your eyes were being weird.” She shuffled away from him, to such a distance that it was clear she had lied and knew what he had been thinking about and knew the reason his eyes had brightened, verging on glowing.
He was hungry, but not for food.
He wanted a taste of something far more dangerous and alluring.
The fascinating little Amazon diligently keeping her eyes off him.
As if that would stop him from desiring her.
Perhaps that desire was part of the reason he had taken her from the battlefield. He had been drawn to her then, powerless to resist her beauty as she had stood over him. She had enslaved him with nothing more than a look into his eyes, a moment where something had passed between them. A silent understanding.
A mutual attraction.
“I am a bachelor,” he said, his voice low at first but gaining strength as he locked his gaze on her and allowed it to drift down her back, taking in her curves and how her black top and trousers hugged them. “I have no female… and it has been that way for a very long time.”
She whirled to face him, a touch of rose on her cheeks. Her mouth flapped but no words came out. When he risked a step towards her, she bolted, slipping past him and rushing down the corridor. She grunted and he switched his senses to her, concerned that she had hurt herself by running into the darkness.
She had stopped a short distance into the tunnel.
He sighed when her voice rang along it.
“Bloody buggery son of a bitch.” Those words held venom that had disappeared when she next spoke, her voice far softer and weaker. “It’s a bit dark. Are you coming?”
Loke smiled and finished gathering what he needed for their meal.
He hacked the leg off the carcass with his knife and set it into the pot, and wiped the blood off the blade with a cloth that he tossed into the pot too. He grabbed the torch from the wall and strolled along the corridor, making Anais wait. The firelight danced ahead of him, reaching her first, slowly running up her legs to her torso and then illuminating her face.
She stared at her knees and muttered to herself as she dusted them down.
“Are you hurt?” He looked at her knees and then her hands, not seeing any scratches or smelling any blood on her.
She shook her head. “For the record, I’ve decided to add another rule. You have to swear not to look at me like that again.”
“Like what?” He stepped closer to her, staring down into her eyes, holding her gaze and challenging her to look away.
She truly was beautiful. The Amazons would have been proud to have her as one of their race.
“Like that.” She managed to hold his gaze but he could see she was teetering on the brink of losing her nerve and looking away.
“Like what?” he husked again, inching closer to her. “Tell me how I look at you.”
She did look away now. “Like you’re a beast and I’m your damned prey… like a barbarian who took someone captive and thinks they can do whatever they please with them.”
He dropped the pot and had her wrist in his hand before she could run away from him. She fought him as he pulled her around to face him, and he held the torch higher, afraid of hurting her with the fire. He released her wrist and had his arm around her waist a split-second later, pinning her against his front. She rained blows down on his bare chest and he let her vent her frustration, because he had more important matters to focus on than mere physical pain.
“Look at me, Little Amazon.” He waited for her to do as he had asked and when she didn’t, he dropped the torch behind him and captured her cheek. She instantly stilled and he cursed when she began to tremble, her fear an acrid note in her soft scent. He slowly skimmed his fingers down to her jaw and tilted her head up. She closed her eyes and he huffed. “Look at me, Anais.”
Using her name seemed to be the key to making her listen because she opened her eyes. Their rich sapphire depths drew him in, leaving him aware of only her.
“I am no beast or barbarian,” he murmured and wished she could believe him. “I have no intention of using you in that manner. I have sworn not to hurt you… have I not?”
She nodded.
“Then why persist with this nonsense?”
She tried to look away but he held her firm. “Because… just because. I don’t have to give you a reason.”
Because she feared the reason she had to give.
She didn’t want to voice it and tell him that he wasn’t the only one who felt desire, who was drawn to her and powerless against the ferocity of his need of such a delicate little female. She wanted him too, and for her it was infinitely more difficult to comprehend and cope with. She viewed herself as a captive and he her abductor. That alone was reason enough for her to fight her feelings.
But she had other reasons too, just as he did.
A mortal was no match for an immortal.
He brushed his fingers across her soft cheek and reluctantly released her, stepping back to give her room to gather herself. He picked up the torch and grabbed the handle of the cauldron.
“Come. I need water.” He waited for her to finish smoothing her clothes before moving.
She followed him, a silent shadow in the low light.
He searched for something to say to dispel the tension between them but nothing came to him. It had been a long time since he’d had female company, had desired one as he desired her, and he wasn’t sure how to go about things. He didn’t know how to charm females of her world, and wasn’t sure he should be charming her at all. He was trying to keep his distance, but the moment he let his guard down, he found himself close to her, seeking a way of touching her or winning a smile from her.
He banked left when they reached the end of the tunnel and led her along another one. The path sloped downwards and the air grew moist as he approached the area deep in the heart of the mountain where he had created a bathing pool and one for his store of water.
Anais busied herself with touring the large cave, her fingers drifting over the stalagmites that rose from the ground, forming jagged black spikes.
“Why live in the front of the cave when you have all these rooms?” She glanced across at him.
He dipped the small wooden pail he had made into the well near the entrance and pulled it out, setting it down on the rocky side. “The fire.”
She frowned. “What about it?”
He lifted the torch and wafted it around, making it smoke. That smoke rose up to the top of the cavern and stayed there.
Her eyes lit up with understanding. “I get it. Smoke accumulates back here.”
“It is safer at the mouth of the cave too. I can sense intruders and it is a bigger space. I can shift if I need to.” He held the pail out to her and she crossed the room to him and took it.
Perhaps she was finally settling in and becoming more comfortable with him. He wasn’t going to hold his breath though. Whenever he thought she was becoming accustomed to being around him, she revolted and turned on him again.
“What’s it like to shift?” she said to the pail.
Loke shrugged. “It is difficult to explain. It does not hurt, and it is over so quickly for me that I barely notice it. It is as natural to me as breathing or walking.”
She frowned at the water, her nose wrinkling with it. “I’ve met wolf and cat shifters. It always looks like it hurts when they shift.”
“I suspect that is because you are hunting those creatures.” He looked across at her and tried to imagine her fighting people from those species. Perhaps she was strong enough to battle cats and wolves, maybe even vampires with the right weaponry, but she was too weak to fight dragons or bears, and he definitely couldn’t imagine her surviving a fight against an elf or a demon. “They are forced to shift quickly. I have heard that it causes them great pain… but then I suppose the death you wish to deal will hurt them worse… giving them to others to butcher in the name of science.”
She raised her eyes to his, narrowing them at the same time. He had offended her again, but this time he didn’t care. Fighting with honour in a battle was one thing. Both parties knew what to expect—death if they failed. Hunting prey for handing them over to others to study was another. The losing side was expecting death, not an agonising torture at the hands of scientists.
He curled his lip again.
She huffed. “I don’t do that… so get it out of your damned head. Archangel doesn’t slice and dice. It studies, but using modern technology. Scans… machines… bloodwork. That sort of thing.”
It didn’t make him change his opinion of this Archangel she was always quick to defend.
“You do not deny that you hand over some of your prey to them though.” He began walking again, heading back towards the fire.
She didn’t respond.
He wasn’t surprised.
She worked for people who made a business of hunting and studying creatures, and he suspected that what she had been told about those studies differed greatly from what really happened.
He led her back to the cave mouth and she placed the pail on the ground near the fire and sat on the furs without him asking her to make herself comfortable.
Loke wasn’t going to read into that either.
He kneeled on the black ground by the fire in the middle of the cave and focused on making their meal. She was silent the whole time, studying him. He stopped several times, on the verge of asking her what she was thinking, before continuing with his work.
She spoke once, during her meal when she mentioned that the meat tasted like beef. He still wasn’t sure what kind of animal beef was. He had taken the empty bowl from her and served himself some stew, and by the time he had gathered the courage to ask and risk her mocking him, she had fallen asleep.
Loke set the bowl down, rose to his feet and crossed the short stretch of ground between them. He kneeled beside her and canted his head as he studied her. She lay on her left side, her back to the wall of the cave, the firelight playing over her soft features and making her fair hair shimmer like gold.
What was it about this little female that drew him to her? She had spoken about strength of heart to him, her belief shining in her words for him to hear. Was emotional strength really a match for physical strength? Did it really make a mortal capable of mating with a strong immortal?
He didn’t believe that.
He brushed a rogue strand of golden hair from her face and settled the tips of his middle and index fingers against her temple. His eyes slipped shut and he breathed deeply and evenly as he focused on her.
Dragons had limited magic born of their connection to the earth and nature. Every generation born in Hell had weaker powers than the last. He was born of the generation before the final one to bear magic.
His magic was weak and he could only use it sparingly. It would drain him and leave him vulnerable for the next few hours, but he had no choice. He couldn’t risk her waking and attempting to escape.
He funnelled a little magic into her, enough to bind her sleep to his.
If she woke, he would too.
When he woke, she would.
It was safer this way.
He hadn’t lied to her. Beyond the cave were other dragons, ones who would live up to her fears.
They wouldn’t treat her with respect as he did. They wouldn’t seek to take care of her. They wouldn’t want to protect her for no other reason than her safety meant something to them. They would only protect her because she would be theirs and dragons defended what they owned.
She would be nothing but a possession to them.
Loke stroked his fingers down her cheek.
What was she to him?
He wasn’t sure, but the longer he was around her, the more he was coming to fear he knew the reason why the thought of a prince of elves and a demon king finding their mate in a mortal female concerned him.
He had a feeling that their meeting on the battlefield had been more than chance.
It had been fate.