CHAPTER 4
Damian woke suddenly and completely, the sense of someone watching him uppermost in his mind. For a moment he was still, frozen in place as he used his dragon’s senses to scan his surroundings.
Nothing. There was no one in the room with him. But there had been. The fading edge of a delicate scent teased at his nostrils, bringing his big body to life as heat and desire stronger than he’d ever known raged through him.
Heart thudding in his chest, he lifted his head, looking around. He was alone, apart from dot, who blinked at him sleepily from her “nest” on the pillows on the other side of the bed.
“Uhhh,” he managed, dropping his head back to the pillows and closing his eyes. Lifting his hands, he scrubbed at his face. Fuck. He was going crazy now to boot.
“I’m imagining things,” he said aloud. “That’s the first sign of madness, isn’t it? Or is that talking to yourself? Either way, I’m fucked.”
Turning his head again, he found dot watching him with wide eyes. Wide eyes that were way too intelligent for a parrot. But she couldn’t be anything else, could she? She looked away, gaze sliding down his body toward the sheet that was tented in his lap.
“Not for little birdies,” he all but yelped, grabbing a pillow to stuff over his crotch to hide his raging erection. The way her head drooped she seemed almost disappointed, upset that he had covered himself up. It was either that or he had embarrassed the crap out of a parrot. That was a new low.
Shaking his head, he levered himself out of bed, keeping the pillow over his dick as he walked across the room to pull some pants on. He didn’t care who saw his ass. Hell, half the blacks had at some point or other… during showers after training or when they’d been out drinking. A quirk of his buddy Nik’s shift magic was the ability to “disappear” someone else’s clothing. Getting caught buck nekkid in the middle of a bar was a common occurrence. So much so, none of them batted an eyelid at it anymore. The only one he didn’t do it to was Adra. That was probably more a residual sense of self-preservation than actual sense. Even the dumbest creatures had a rudimentary survival instinct buried somewhere, including Nik.
Turning back to face dot, he noticed she had moved from her nest and was now perched on top of his pillows, her wide eyes following his every movement. She tilted her head from side to side, a gesture that made her look cuter than her initial bald appearance would deem. With a chirp she bounced forward and across the covers toward him. Only two steps from him, she tumbled. Feet over head. In a spectacular fashion, she somersaulted until she rested on her back, her tiny clawed feet up in the air.
He chuckled, stepping forward and rescuing the little bird from her tussle with the sheets. She came up fighting, squawking and nipping at him with her sharp beak.
“Hey, hey! Enough of that!” he chided, holding her up away from him, but his grip was gentle. He didn’t want to hurt her, even though she was having what looked like a tantrum. Definitely female, he decided. She was in a right mood because he’d seen her fall over.
“You’re missing like… all your feathers, dot. Your balance will be off,” he pointed out, cuddling her against his chest. Sure she could scratch and claw him, draw blood even, but he would heal. Probably before they’d finished breakfast.
Ourrrrrssss… His dragon rumbled, the sound almost a purr, and Damian blinked in surprise. It sounded more like a purr than anything he’d heard it make. Her fighting stopped, reacting to the purr, and her amber eyes looked into his. Could parrots smile? He felt like she was smiling at him. He watched as this time instead of biting him she peeked out a tiny tongue and licked his hand. Could parrots look smug? Because he swore she now did.
“Come on then, dot. Let’s get some breakfast. Shall we?” He kept her tucked against his chest as he walked through to the kitchen. “How do chocolate pancakes sound?”
DAMIAN HAD LEFT.
Sula stretched her small neck to look into the hallway from her perched position on Damian’s desk, almost toppling off as she tried to look around the corner to the front door. Her claws scraped against the wood but she managed to regain her balance as she hopped from one foot to the other. He had, as he did now every day, made her breakfast and then said goodbye as he left the apartment, sitting her back on a plump cushion on his desk so she could see out the window and down the hallway.
She didn’t really understand where he went most of the day. Sometimes he went out dressed in jeans and a nice shirt, but other times he looked more like a soldier in black combat pants and heavy boots. Those times he came back covered in blood and smelling of other shifters. He always looked pleased that she was still there when he returned, though, greeting her with a wide smile, which just made her little clawed feet curl.
Then he’d tell her about his day, about his friends and about a queen as she curled up in his arms. She didn’t care what he spoke about as long as she could cuddle up against him and listen to the deep rumble of his voice, his scent wrapping around her. It comforted her, made her feel safe, and, usually, it didn’t take her long to drift off.
She waited for a good five minutes after the door had clicked shut, head tilted to the side as she listened for any movement in the corridor beyond. The lift was an older mechanism, the whirr-cluck as the car reached each stop easily picked out if you knew what you were listening for.
Satisfied that Damian had actually left, she hopped to the edge of the desk. The instant her claws left the polished wood, she let go of her hold on her form and triggered the shift. Her bones popped and cracked, thickening and stretching. Skin flowed, her beak receding, and her view of the room changed from avian to human as her bare feet touched down on the plush carpet.
She stood for a moment, wriggling her toes into the softness. It still seemed unbelievable that she was here with Damian and not back in her dank box prison. Sometimes, at night, she woke from a doze in a panic, thinking that it had all been a dream, a cruel trick her mind was playing on her and that she wasn’t here at all. Only seeing him stretched out asleep eased her worries. When that happened, she nestled closer, the touch of his skin the only thing that could ease her back into sleep.
Shuddering all the way down to her toes, she padded barefoot from the office. Unknown to Damian, she shifted every day. The regular feeding and her little attacks on the never-ending supply of chocolate cake from the refrigerator had quickly restored her strength enough that shifting was no longer an issue. She looked like crap. Still. She checked the mirror every time she went into the bathroom, hoping to see some improvement, only none had happened. Every scar was still there, the evidence of violence written in stark lines on her skin. Despite the fact she looked and hoped, she knew she wouldn’t see any improvement. To heal properly she needed something, a certain something, and only that would bring her back to her former glory. The trouble was, it wasn’t something she did for fun.
Sula padded on bare feet into Damian’s bedroom, going straight to the drawer where he kept her favorite t-shirts. Pulling the soft material over her head, she closed her eyes for a moment and held it to her nose, taking a deep breath. Despite being washed, it still held his scent. She committed it to memory. Again. Every time he slept, she watched him like some sort of stalker and licked his shoulder as if reinforcing her weak and feeble claim.
She knew he only saw her as a bald, weak parrot. But a girl could dream, right? And Damian was dream-worthy, each muscle on that huge hard body of his deserved worshipping. But that’s where Sula’s dreams got silly. She had no experience with men, especially men of Damian’s caliber.
Maybe it was better this way. Better that he thought of her as a bird and not a woman.
Sula headed back to the office and this time, instead of eating and sleeping, she wanted to get to know the man who was in her thoughts most of the time. His collection of eggs pulled her attention more than anything. There wasn’t a set theme to the collection, only that they were all eggs of some sort. They ranged in size and decoration. Some were small and plain, nothing at all special, whereas others were decorated to the highest standard. Others sparkled in the morning light, the gems encrusted on the surface making her wonder where and how Damian had acquired them.
Picking up a melon sized egg, she smiled at the tones of red and gold. Sula tilted it in the light. The crystals and gemstones that covered the surface caught the light, casting a collection of rainbow colors that streaked across the room. The play of light captivated Sula, reminding her once again of the colors that would have been seen in her feathers. Colors full of depth and heat. The colors of fire.
Tilting the egg up, Sula looked underneath, taking in every detail until a word stood out from the base. She blinked before she quickly returned it to its home.
Fabergé.
Damian had an actual Fabergé egg.
“Wow,” Sula breathed and stepped away from the collection, not wanting to be any closer in case she got clumsy and knocked one of them off. Her captors had on some occasions dealt with items of the non-shifter variety, Fabergé being a name that came up frequently. Leaving the sparklies behind, she instead continued her search, opening and closing drawers, peeking into cupboards and looking through mail.
Other than the eggs, she found nothing.
The male Damian was a mystery—a mystery who collected priceless eggs and loved chocolate cake.
“Ooh cake,” she whispered to herself and closed the last drawer. Cake was a better idea than snooping.
Skipping with the most energy she had felt in years, Sula entered the simple kitchen. The clean worktops and wooden doors again called out to Damian’s simple, yet masculine style. One she enjoyed and, if she had ever been lucky enough to have her own place, would have opted for as well.
Sula didn’t mess about and headed straight to the large refrigerator. It was one of those double ones that towered over her. It took both of her hands gripping the handle as she pulled open the double doors. The weight of them nearly pulled her off her feet, but she held her ground as the doors swung open.
Sula grinned. There it was. There waiting just for her was an extremely large chocolate cake, one that was nearer the size of a truck tire in diameter. As she looked at the chocolate-covered delight sitting on the middle shelf, she did feel a tiny pang of guilt for eating Damian’s cake. Hell he never said anything. Since she had started to pilfer the cake, Damian had never brought it up about the slices going missing.
Maybe he thought he had eaten them and had forgotten.
But there was no way she was not eating it. It called to her.
Chocolate called to women everywhere, and when it called, she in particular had to answer.
So here she was, head first in the cake while the rest of her body stood in the doorway of the refrigerator.
This was the happiest she had ever been in her life, she thought as she stuffed a slice into her already filled mouth.
SHIT. He’d forgotten his cell.
Damian had barely stepped out of the lift in the lobby when he realized the loss, but instantly he was caught in conversation with Reggie, the security guard on duty. Not wanting to be rude to the human, a decent guy who dealt with security for the lower offices in the block, he’d hung around for a chat. It wasn’t like he had much to do today at court other than training. On her honeymoon, the queen wasn’t in residence at the moment, so most of the blacks were keeping up with their training and patrols. Business as normal, without all the pomp and circumstance usually involved.
Extracting himself from the conversation quickly when Reggie’s attention was distracted, Damian turned around to take the lift back up to his apartment. Seeing a familiar, slender blonde step in to the lift, he veered off to the left and took the doors to the stairs. Twenty floors up, but it was preferable to being shut in a small space with Debby, Waldek Industries’ resident cougar. If she were a werecougar, it would have been a different matter. She wasn’t. She was very human, but more predatory than any shifter he’d ever known, and on the lookout for husband number four.
He didn’t intend to be it.
So instead, he took the stairs two at a time, powering up them until he reached the penthouse level. Rubbing a hand over his jaw, he shouldered his way through the door. As he walked into the kitchen, he stopped dead.
There was a half-naked woman in front of his fridge.
She sat crossed legged with a piece of cake in each hand. Where there should have been hair, there was none. Only red stubble could be seen on her scalp. Yet she still looked extremely feminine. Her face was unrecognizable, mainly due to being completely covered in chocolate. If anything, she looked like she was enjoying herself thoroughly.
“Who the hell are you?” His harsh demand made her jump, turning and leaping to her feet in the same heartbeat. She backed up, fear written in every line of her body, but he’d been caught by her eyes.
Large. Golden. Familiar.
“Dot?”
He watched as her eyes widened more and she backed up farther, almost as if she wanted to crawl into the fridge and hide. She had dropped the cake on the floor, the deep brown leaving smears across the wood. Her hands were still caked in the frosting along with her face. She had somehow managed to cover the front of the fridge as well. Her front was covered, the material caked in thick frosting that made his dragon want to moan at the waste.
Wait, was that his shirt?
His eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second. That was indeed his shirt. One of the fancy ones he wore at court when he wasn’t in combat dress. Then he smiled. She looked adorable in it… and, despite the chocolate covering her, hot as all hell. The male part of his brain instantly saw past the frosting to the slender lines of her legs and the curves hinted at under the linen covering her.
But she was terrified, her scent hanging on the air, and he held his hands out to the sides.
“It’s just me,” he told her. “You know me. Remember?”
She tilted her head exactly like she did when she was in her bird form, although he still had no clue what she was. He could see her hands as they shook and her eyes now looked past him. She was in flight mode, and if he didn’t do something quickly, she would either bolt or shift straight back to being a bird. He wanted to keep her in this form. He wanted information.
“Shhh, it’s okay, dot. It’s just me.”
He kept his voice low and calming, hands out to the side as he lowered himself to a crouch and then onto his knees. He was a big guy and a predatory-type shifter. She was obviously a shifter as well, and a prey-type. The last thing he wanted was her running and hurting herself.
So he needed to make himself smaller.
“Talk to me, dot. How’s the cake? Did you manage to eat it all this time?” he asked, amusement leaching into his voice. He’d been aware her appetite was coming back, but he hadn’t linked the disappearing cake with the little bird. He’d thought the cleaners who came in during the evening had been removing the remains.
Her voice was so quiet he almost missed it. His dragon didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” her lips moved again, repeating the words as her eyes left him and she bowed her head. Instead of bolting she thankfully stayed, gracefully dropping to the floor. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her chocolate-covered arms around them.
“I’m sorry…about the cake…please,” she stuttered. “Please don’t kick me out… I don’t want to leave.”
It had taken everything in him to stay where he was when he’d discovered her, but the scared note in her voice broke his control.
“Hey… No one’s doing any kicking out or leaving,” he said, walking toward her on his knees. She tensed but didn’t move, so he edged a little closer. “Where would I be without my little dot eating all the cake so I don’t get fat, eh?”
“I didn’t mean to,” she answered again, her eyes peeking over her knees but the orbs no longer showing intense fear like they had before. “You are not fat,” she whispered as her cheeks appeared to change from pink to a blush red. She bent her head again and he felt the loss of looking in her amber eyes.
“Hey… hey… don’t hide,” he begged, sitting cross legged in front of her. Even here, he towered over her. Shit… should he lie down on the floor? “You have pretty eyes. What’s your name?”
She peeked over her knees again, but this time she smiled. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it showed him his fumbling on the floor like a floundered fish was doing at least some good at helping to put her at ease.
“Sula,” she mumbled. “I’m called Sula.”
This time she kept her eyes trained on him, although her face still remained partly hidden by her knees.
She was watching him. That was good. Better than her hiding from him. His dragon purred, wanting to get closer to the little female, and he had to hold it back, smiling at her again.
“Hey, Sula, I’m Damian. Pleased to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand to shake, as if they were at a court function and not sitting on the tiles of his kitchen floor.
Her cautious eyes flicked from his face and back to his outstretched hand before she slowly released her grip on her own knee and placed her small hand in his own.
“Hello,” she answered, her voice louder than it had been, “Damian.” She paused. “Thank you.”