CHAPTER 14
Lyra wasn’t sure how she was meant to walk. She could barely tie her belt around her waist. Her hands shook badly, a quiet giggle escaping her as she struggled with the simple task. Grey rested beside her, looking as spent as she felt, a hazy edge to his blue eyes as he stared off into the distance, away from the dragon village.
“It’s a good thing we can rest at the village,” she said, longing for a bed.
And maybe round number four with Grey.
He was insatiable.
Although, she was hardly holding back herself.
“We’re not going back.”
Her fingers paused at their work and she looked at Grey. His eyes remained fixed on the distance.
“What do you mean, we’re not going back?” And why did he suddenly feel nervous again? She looked back at the dragon village. “Did something happen?”
The way he refused to look at her and the sudden spike in his nerves said that something had happened, and he didn’t want to talk about it.
He picked up his backpack, slung it over his shoulders and started walking in the opposite direction to the dragons.
Lyra finished with her belt and hurried after him. “What about the gem? I’m not in the habit of not paying my debts.”
He growled over his shoulder at her, his blue eyes flashing fire. “You are never setting foot in that place again, do you understand?”
She stilled, wanted to growl right back at him for threatening her and thinking he could order her around, but she held it back, because she could see in his eyes, and she could feel in him, that it wasn’t a male need to make her submit to him and to control her that had him laying down the law.
It was concern.
“Grey.” She took a step towards him. “Tell me what happened.”
He huffed, turned his back on her, and started walking again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Like he hadn’t wanted to talk about why he felt he was unworthy of her.
He feared how she would react.
“I have a right to know, Grey… but more than that… I want to know. I want us to be honest with each other. Aren’t things better when we’re honest with each other?” She caught up with him, and the way his pupils dilated to devour the blue that started to glow in his eyes said that he was well aware that things were better when they were honest with each other.
It had led to three fantastic orgasms.
“Tell me what happened.” She took hold of his right hand and gently stroked her thumb across the back of it.
He looked at their linked hands, drew down a slow deep breath and sighed.
“Ren threatened me.”
“Son of a fucking bitch.” She turned back around, intending to return to the village and beat the crap out of the dragon, but Grey’s hand tightened around hers, stopping her.
She looked back at him.
Rather than the softness she expected to find in his eyes, she found hardness. Diamond hard. Glacially cold. Anger coursed through him and into her, and his hand shook against hers. She glanced at it, and wasn’t surprised to find his nails were now black claws, revealing his hellcat genes.
“He threatened you,” he murmured, pure fury straining his deep voice. “If I was strong enough, I would slay that dragon for you.”
She could see that he meant that. She eased back around to face him, and settled her free hand against his chest as she stepped into him. He tilted his head downwards, towards her, holding her gaze, his softening as he stared into her eyes. Her eyelids slipped to half-mast when he brushed his knuckles across her cheek.
“I don’t want to pay the price he demanded for your safety, Lyra… I cannot.” He averted his gaze and slowly closed his eyes. “I don’t want to do that sort of thing. You’d hate me for it.”
What had the dragon wanted him to do in exchange for her freedom?
He exhaled, sucked down another breath and sighed that one out too. She squeezed his hand, showing him that she was with him, and that she could never hate him.
“The Archangel team I was tracking for my brother… I think they’re the ones nearby. Ren… he wanted me to capture them for him.” He opened his eyes and looked into hers, his silvery eyebrows furrowing. “He wants them as replacements for the captives Archangel took from him, ones they viewed as some sort of spoil of war.”
Lyra felt herself pale as that sank in. “He wants to make them all slaves.”
“I didn’t want to do it… I don’t want to do it… but if I didn’t—” He cut himself off.
She nodded. “I know. You would have done it for my sake.”
To protect her.
Even though he feared she would hate him for giving those innocent people to the dragons as slaves, and would hate himself too.
“Let’s get out of here.” She snatched hold of his hand, threading her fingers between his, and tugged him away from the village.
The dragon could go fuck himself. She wasn’t going to pay him anything in exchange for removing her shackles, not now that she knew what sort of a sick bastard he was, and knew the horrible thing he had tried to force Grey to do in order to protect her.
She started walking with Grey, as quickly as she could manage, heading along the worn path over the black mountain. The range extended southwards, towards the portal Brink had pointed out to her.
The pebbles on the path bit into her feet as she started the descent, tugging Grey along behind her. When she skidded, he caught her around her waist and pulled her up against him.
His bare chest pressed against her back, all hard muscle and heat.
She purred in response.
He was still a moment and then he purred too, the rumble echoing through the point where they pressed together and into her.
He lowered his head and swept his lips across her shoulder as he tightened his arm around her to bring her closer still, and she leaned into him, forgot what she was meant to be doing as she gave herself over to the feel of his kiss, and the tender need behind it.
She tilted her head without thinking, giving him access to her neck, and he growled against her skin and ran his tongue up the side of her throat, and teased her earlobe with his short fangs.
A tremor wracked her.
Hot and fierce.
Delicious.
She shifted her head forwards.
His warm breath skated across the nape of her neck.
His eyes drilled into it.
His heart laboured against her back and the hands that held her began to shake.
“Lyra,” he uttered, a broken and strained sound, one filled with part plea and part pain.
She was pushing him too hard again, but it had proven something.
That need she had felt go through him when they had been making love, one she had thought she had imagined at the time and had put down to coming from her, it had been real.
He wanted to mark her nape.
He wanted to be her mate.
She gave him the relief he needed, lifting her hand and shifting her hair to conceal the nape of her neck.
He breathed a sigh of relief and pressed his forehead against the back of her head.
Lyra shifted to face him, but he started walking again before she could ask him the question balanced on the tip of her tongue, one that would confirm a feeling she’d had for a while now.
He clutched her hand tightly as he led her down the mountain, his eyes fixed ahead of him. She followed in silence, pulling her thoughts together and mulling over everything that had happened.
Right back to the moment they had met.
The moment that was at the very heart of the question she wanted to ask him.
When they hit the valley floor, he paused and removed his pack, and rifled through it. He offered her his canteen. She took it, glad to feel how heavy it was. Her tiger had at least had the sense to get a refill from the dragons before she had run off like some lovesick girl with a broken heart.
She swigged the water. It was still cool, so refreshing that she wanted to pour it over herself and scrub all the dirt away.
Damn, she wanted a bath.
Maybe a certain tiger could scrub her back.
He took the canteen when she offered it back to him.
“Have you ever felt there’s maybe a reason you attacked the auction that day?” she said and his motions slowed, a frown marring his handsome face. “Maybe one other than what had happened to your siblings, but related to your need to protect others.”
His right eyebrow arched.
She fought a bout of nerves and tried to keep them out of her voice as she spoke.
“Did you feel something that day?”
He lowered the canteen from his lips, capped it and shrugged. “Anger. Pure anger. I wanted to kill the people leading that caravan of slaves. I wanted to free them.”
“And when you did?” Her question stopped him midway through putting the canteen back in his pack, freezing him like a statue.
He stared blankly at the ground for a few seconds.
And then he looked at her.
“The need abated… but then it came back. Stronger than before.” His dark-silver eyebrows met in another hard frown. “It was just because I knew other slaves were nearby and I wanted to free them too.”
Lyra edged closer to him, heart jittering in her throat. “What if you sensed me?”
Grey stared at her. “You were too far away. My senses—”
“The hellcat in you would be aware of me even over a greater distance than that,” she cut in.
He looked as if he was having trouble believing that. “I didn’t know my senses were that strong.”
“They aren’t… normally.” She resisted the urge to fidget with the belt of her shorts and kept her eyes locked with his.
They narrowed. “What are you saying?”
Lyra moved forwards again, a single step that brought them back into contact, and pressed her palms to his chest, over his heart. It drummed hard and strong against her hands, a powerful beat that echoed in her veins.
She tilted her head back to hold his gaze, and whispered, “You know what I’m saying, Grey. I’m saying you’re my fated one… and I’m yours, and that’s the reason you attacked the auction.”
He went still, his breath hitching as he stared into her eyes.
“You did it because you needed to find me, and protect me.”
His eyes widened.
She could see it as it dawned on him, as everything fell into place.
“I felt relieved the moment I saw you… drawn to you… and unwilling to leave without you.” He gathered her closer, wrapping his arms around her. His eyes leaped between hers, searching them. “You’re right. I was satisfied when I freed the slaves in the caravan… but then I felt something… I became aware of something and I lost it.”
Because he had needed to protect her.
His hellcat instincts had driven him, had seized control and pushed him to find her, to fight to reach her and to claim her.
“How long have you known?” His blue eyes continued to scour hers.
That trickle of fear returned, running through his veins.
“I think I knew it from the moment you walked into that tavern and I wanted to claw out the eyes of any female who so much as glanced at you.”
She thought he might smile at that.
He frowned instead. “You’ve known that long and you didn’t leave when I let you?”
She frowned right back at him. “You don’t let me do anything. I do what I want.”
“See… this is what I mean. You know I have hellcat blood—”
Lyra silenced him with a kiss. He fell for it for a few seconds, his mouth moving against hers, tongue teasing and tempting her to take things further.
He pushed her back and scowled at her.
She huffed at him, and then sighed when she caught the glimmer of hurt in his eyes, one that drummed in his blood too. He was thinking bad things about himself again. If she ever met his pride, she was going to show them just how vicious a hellcat could be.
She lifted her hand and rubbed her thumb across the space between his eyebrows, smoothing out the wrinkles so he would stop frowning at her.
He relented.
That was better. He was handsome when he scowled at her, but she much preferred him this way, his face soft with affection and maybe a hint of submission. Just a smidgen. She liked having this big, powerful male at her mercy, looking at her as if he would do anything for her, would be a kitten for her and her alone.
“You’re nothing like a hellcat male, Grey. You’re caring, protective. Wonderful.” She smiled when a hint of rose spread across his cheeks. “I know you would never hurt me. You would never try to collar me.”
He growled at that, gathered her in his arms and pressed his forehead against hers. “Never.”
His palms brushed her neck, and she shivered as he tenderly caressed it, all of his love in that soft touch, together with the desire she could feel in him, the one that told her he would take away her scars if he could.
Lyra lifted her head and captured his lips, kissed him softly and hoped he would feel in it that desire touched her deeply, would have had her falling harder for him.
But she was already in love with him.