Chapter Seventeen
Caine
He’d fallen asleep in the chair next to his bed, keeping a watchful eye on Annalise after they’d come home from the bar. She’d slept for several hours, though it didn’t seem restful. The constant tossing and turning was less than peaceful, he was sure. But eventually she’d awoken.
Caine had wanted to push. To ask her why the hell a senator, of all people, was coming after her. Why was he so interested in her, and more importantly, what had he meant when he’d said that she had a “commitment” to him?
At first Caine had thought she was just on the run from a stalker, one of those crazed men who couldn’t get it through their heads that she wasn’t interested in him anymore. The type that never gave up, always contacting someone but never quite crossing the line to the point where the police could step in. Not until things were too late, at least.
When Lincoln had first shown up, he’d thought maybe it was just some rich billionaire with too much time and money on his hands. Someone who could afford to send a thug under the guise of “security personnel.” That had all changed today when Lee himself had appeared. Caine hadn’t known he was a senator, but apparently Colonel Mara had recognized him.
He stood, raising his arms over his head and stretching. Tendons creaked and joints popped as he limbered up. Even dragons could be stiff after sleeping, and at nearly eight and a half centuries of age, he wasn’t a young wyrm anymore. Granted, six hundred of those years he’d been a stone statue, effectively untouched by age, but the point was he was stiff from sleeping in a chair.
Annalise had asked him to, however. She hadn’t wanted to be left alone. The return of Senator Lee had shaken her badly, and she didn’t seem to feel comfortable unless he was in the room with her. Not wanting to push things too far, Caine had stood his ground and said no at the suggestion he crash in the bed. Annalise had promised she was a grown woman who could say no, but he didn’t want to push it. Not after how unsteady she’d been during the day.
Maybe tonight, if she still wanted his presence.
“Caine?”
He opened one eye and relaxed, dropping his arms. “Good morning.”
“It is a good morning.” She smiled and stretched under the covers.
Caine watched as the comforter slipped down over her breasts. The sheet was still in place, but he could easily see her hard nipples through the thin fabric. Annalise noted his gaze, looked down and with what he could have sworn was a slow deliberateness, pulled them back up.
“Can I have some privacy to get dressed?” she asked sleepily, covering her mouth with her forearm as she yawned.
Caine clamped a hand over his mouth as she triggered him, his jaw popping. “Yeah, of course. Are you hungry?”
The stomach rumble was all the answer he needed. “Join me in the kitchen when you’re awake, sleepyhead.”
“I’m not the one that was snoring until five minutes ago,” she said with a snicker as he left.
“I heard that!” he called over his shoulder, closing the door behind him a split second before a pillow impacted upon it. “Hey, don’t break anything. This isn’t your place yet.”
The silenced shock that greeted his statement brought a smile to his face. Caine had come to a decision. Today was the day. He was going to go out on a limb and blindly trust Annalise. Perhaps if he told her his biggest secret, she would tell him hers. It was worth a shot. He doubted Senator Lee’s threat would amount to much, but on the off chance that it did, Caine wanted Annalise to hear the truth from his lips before she heard it from anyone else.
Thinking of lips brought a flashback to the night they’d shared their very first kiss. He’d dreamt of it every night since, hardly able to forget it. He often awoke rock hard from dreams where he’d been able to take things further, to finally claim his mate. Maybe if he opened up to her, they could work on taking things to the next level both emotionally and physically. He still wasn’t going to push, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t hoping for it.
The shuffle of feet on the floor behind him alerted him to her presence.
“Hey, do you have a ha—”
“No!” he almost shouted, glancing down self-consciously in a panic as his brain filled in the rest of her question. “No I do not.”
Annalise looked around, eyes wide. “Um, okay. Sorry. But I need a towel. So if you don’t have any hand towels, do you have any other ones?”
Caine sighed. “Sorry. Yeah, there’s a bunch of gray and white ones in the closet in the main washroom. Take your pick.” He pointed her to the door near the elevator in the center of the floor-spanning apartment.
Annalise disappeared back into the bedroom as he finished up breakfast, reappearing just in time to help him set the table. He was so focused on the food that he didn’t look up until they were seated. What he saw caused him to drop his fork.
“Caine? Everything okay?”
“Your hair.” He licked his lips. “It’s down…”
The thick onyx hair pooled around her shoulders and slid off it in tantalizing waves. Annalise never wore her hair down. Every time he’d seen her but the first, she’d had it up in a ponytail or bun. Every time. Now she sat in a plain pale pink turtleneck and blue jeans, and she couldn’t have looked more gorgeous.
No makeup adorned her face, which was his preference. It allowed him to see her cheeks with the near-permanent reddish tinge to them, and the freckles. The glorious, glorious freckles that adorned every inch of her skin that he’d been able to get a peek at.
Her eyes watched him as he stared, big and round, but constantly guarded, and always alert. They darted around rapidly, never settling in one place, just like her. Now though, they latched on to him, and the food was forgotten for the time being as they connected on a wavelength he’d previously not thought possible. Nothing was said, because nothing needed to be. They just knew what the other was thinking. If not specific thoughts, then emotions.
Caine had known that she was his mate from almost the moment he’d met her. For the first time, however, he saw his mate with naked unfiltered beauty. If he didn’t have a reputation as a big, tough dragon shifter, he might have shed a tear at the perfection of the moment.
“You look good,” he said, the gruff, halting tone the only outward concession he was willing to make.
Annalise smiled. She saw right through his act to the guarded core, and to who he was inside. Caine had never been looked at like that before, her stare simply piercing right through him. It was amazing how a certain quirk of the lips could convey so much more between two people who understood each other. Each tick told him an essay’s worth of information that no one but him would ever get from her.
“Thank you,” she replied demurely at last, tilting her head forward so her hair spilled across her face, half-obscuring her eyes as she continued to peer up at him.
Caine was entranced, begging the world for the moment not to end.
“Annalise.” He needed to tell her. To reveal all. It was the right time. “There’s something you should know.”
His mate stiffened, probably wondering just where he was going with that subject. Caine cursed himself for being so vague. She was probably preparing herself for terrible news, that he was ditching her or something. He was such a bumbling idiot sometimes.
“It’s not bad,” he rushed on. “I don’t think. Different, yes, but not bad. Maybe cool. Hopefully cool. Definitely interesting. Something you’ve never come across before. Probably.”
She reached across the table, resting a hand on his. “Caine, you’re rambling.”
“Right.” He breathed out heavily. “Sorry. It’s just… I’m a little nervous.”
Those same lips turned upward in a smile so similar to the one before, and yet completely different. This was designed to put him at ease, to tell him it was okay, that he could relax. That she wasn’t going to judge him no matter what he said. All of that and more was contained in the look. He wondered about the judging part. This was…a little more than she might be expecting to hear.
“What is it?” she pressed. “It sounds like it’s important.”
“It is,” he agreed. “To me, at least. It’s a big part of who I am.”
She brightened. “Are you going to finally tell me what this secret is that you’ve been hiding? Do I get to find out at last?”
Caine hunched forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Way to spoil the surprise,” he muttered.
Annalise giggled, a soft, almost childlike sound that immediately brightened his day like nothing else could. It was because it was genuine. Real honest-to-goodness laughter coming completely unexpected. Even now he saw the surprise on her face. She hadn’t planned on it, but she didn’t stop either.
“I’m terrible at ruining surprises,” she admitted. “I can usually guess them ahead of time.”
He leaned back. “Okay, go ahead and guess then. I dare you.”
She crossed her arms. “Double-dare me?”
It was Caine’s turn to laugh, a deeper, booming sound that though soft for him still managed to fill the space around them. “What was it I heard the other day?” he said under his breath. “Oh, right. I double-dog dare you.”
“Well I can’t back down from that,” she conceded with a grin. “Okay, let’s see, what am I working with here.”
Caine continued to lean back, wondering how much of the puzzle she would be able to piece together. If any of it.
“Okay, I’d say I would just list all the weird things about you that might give it away, but we don’t have time for that.”
His jaw popped open. “Pardon me?”
“Shhh, I’m making a mental list of all your weird characteristics.”
“I am not weird!” he protested. “This is totally unfair. You’re supposed to be guessing my secret, not making fun of me.”
Annalise stuck her tongue out. “Hey, you double-dog dared me. You don’t get to tell me to stop after that. So sit back, shut up, and let me think.”
Caine looked around the room helplessly. What the hell had he gotten himself into? But there was no backup, nobody around to reinforce him and tell Annalise that he wasn’t weird.
“Totally ridiculous,” he complained quietly, ignoring the upraised index finger he received in reply. He wasn’t going to hush. He was not weird!
“So, if I were to take some of the things you’ve said at face value, you said you and your brothers are old. You’re all giants, as are all your friends. You aren’t afraid of fighting people with training and skills. The concept of killing doesn’t bother you. You also claim to have been able to create ice spikes capable of ripping tires to shreds. Am I missing anything?”
He thought back over their interactions. “I don’t think so?”
“Well, from that, I can surmise two things. One, you’re an alien with super-advanced technology.”
“Wrong.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, because the idea that I kissed an alien is just…weird. It’s even weirder that you were good at it.”
He looked away. His mate thought he was a good kisser? That was good to know. “Maybe it was a fluke,” he said. “Maybe you just thought I was a good kisser. We should probably try it again to find out for sure.”
Annalise eyed him sidelong. “We’re waiting for the boot to drop after you and your buddies insulted and threatened a senator who thinks he owns me, and you want to make out? Don’t you think it’s a bad time?”
“No?”
She snorted. “Men. Okay, back to the topic at hand. If you aren’t an alien, then you’re some kind of superhuman. Or maybe a magic user. Are you a…wizard? Or mage? They live a long time in fantasy. That would be pretty cool.” She frowned, tapping a finger against her jaw. “But aren’t they usually loners as well as being weird? You seem fairly social. And a family of jacked mages? No, that makes no sense.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You are?” Annalise looked embarrassed at how happy she was to be complimented by him.
“Very. You’re not entirely correct, but I never would have expected you to put much belief in all those various statements.”
“I don’t,” she admitted. “But like I said, if I were to take it all at face value. What’s more likely is you’re all super spies with advanced technology, making jokes about feeling old in a young man’s world.”
“Wrong.” He sat back again, crossing his arms. She could call him weird all she wanted, but she wasn’t ever going to get it right.
“What things are true, and what things are cleverly disguised lies then?” she asked.
“It’s all true.”
“How do you do that?”
He shrugged his crossed arms. “Do what?”
“Speak so convincingly, as if you actually believe everything you’ve said.”
Caine grinned. “Because it’s all true. Watch. My name is Caine. I’m nearly two and a half centuries old. Mostly. Awake, anyway.” He shook his head and hurried on. “I’m stronger than any weightlifter. Faster than any runner. I heal quicker than any technology could produce. I can conjure ice or snow from thin air, and I can shift into a huge white dragon.”
Annalise stared at him intently as he spoke. At the word dragon, her mouth dropped open. “You’re a dragon?”
“A dragon shifter, yes. Half-human, half-dragon. I can assume the form of either.”
“No way.”
He blinked. “Yes way?”
“I’m getting worried,” she admitted. “The way you speak you sound so certain of yourself. Like you believe all these lies. Which makes me wonder just what other lies you’ve been telling yourself.”
Caine rolled his eyes. “Here. Watch.”
In the blink of an eye he picked up the knife next to him, stabbed it through his left hand, and then, leaving the knife embedded there, he reached out and froze the juice in her cup. But he wasn’t done there. He called to the frozen juice, urging it to do his bidding. The orange liquid rose up from the cup, curling around until it spelled her name in midair, all while still attached to the cup.
Calmly Caine pulled the knife from his hand and lifted it free from the table. Blood dripped onto the turquoise tablecloth at first, but it rapidly slowed as his flesh knit itself back together.
Once it finished he wiped his hand off on a napkin and then proceeded to show her the healing wound and its fresh pink skin.
“Okay, this is kind of crazy,” she said slowly as the juice flowed back into the glass and unthawed itself. “I’m not sure I believe what I just saw.”
“I’d show you my dragon, but here really isn’t the place. But I have something that will help. I think. You’ll probably find it amusing.” He got up, searching around until he found what he was looking for in one kitchen drawer. “Here, take this.”
Annalise eyed the rolling pin. “If you’re about to make a sexist joke, I would really advise you not to tell me to go get in the kitchen.”
“Not at all. I want you to hit me with it.”
“You want me to what?”
“You heard me. Hit me with it. As hard as you can. Anywhere on exposed skin,” he said, holding out his arms.
“You’re serious?” She looked at the rolling pin. “This isn’t a game, Caine.”
“You see my hand?” he replied, holding it up. “I’m fine, my energy reserves are high. I will heal fast. But please hurry, breakfast is getting cold, and I’m hungry.”
“Anywhere there’s open skin?”
“Yes, so you can see what happens when someone else attacks me, and why I’m not afraid of your friends.”
“Okayyy.” She swung, and she hit him.
“Ow!” he yelped as the wooden pin broke in half over his cheekbone. “Why would you hit me in the face?!”
“YOU SAID ANYWHERE THERE’S OPEN SKIN!” she shouted. “AND WHY ARE THERE WHITE SCALES ON YOUR FACE?”
He shook his head, bits and pieces of wooden pin falling from his hair. “Because I’m a dragon. It’s a built-in defense when we’re attacked. The scales rise to the surface.” He worked his jaw slightly. “Nice swing though.”
“Thank you. I’ve wielded a rolling pin or two in my day,” she threatened, shaking the broken end still in her hand at him.
Caine chuckled. “Now do you believe me?”
“I…I mean, how do I doubt that? But come on, Caine. This is a little crazy.”
“Of course. But that doesn’t mean it’s less true.”
“It could just be magic. Like sleight of hand. You could have planned all this while I was asleep and getting ready.”
“You really are stubborn. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you undeniable proof that couldn’t be faked. But in return, once you admit that it has to be true, even if it goes against everything the world teaches you, you have to kiss me. What do you say?”
“That seems like a pretty fair deal to me.” It was Annalise’s turn to cross her arms.
That didn’t last as Caine rose from his seat and extended an arm toward her.
“Hey now. You have to prove your dragon-ny-ness first. Don’t go thinking you can extract payment and then try and return it. That counts as two kisses.”
He laughed. The idea had occurred to him. “Not my intention. This time. Come on.” He bounced his hand at her.
Annalise took it and rose. Even as she came to him she gasped as the floor under them changed. Caine took her hand and held her close as ice flowed out from him, carpeting the floor, spreading out across the apartment. More ice rolled up and around their feet.
“Ready?”
“Ready for what?”
Then she yelped as he pushed off, and they glided around the room, the ice-blades on their feet carrying them with ease across the smooth sheet. He guided her around furniture and lifted her over tables, the entire massive apartment turned into one giant ice rink.
“Oh Caine,” she sighed, holding herself to his chest as they danced and spun. “Okay, this is pretty damning evidence that there is something special about you.”
“Like you didn’t know that from the day we met,” he murmured into her ear, basking in the feeling of her pressed against him.
“Not like this,” she whispered as they slid along the outside of the apartment, the view out the window mere inches to the side. “Not like this.”
“Do I win the bet?”
“I’m still not convinced that you’re a dragon. That’s pretty out there. But you definitely have a gift. I suppose if I believe in magic, then believing that you can—what did you call it, shift?—if you can shift into a dragon, that’s not all that farfetched.”
“You have an open mind. Most humans would freak out right now.”
“I am freaking out.”
“You are? I don’t feel like you are.”
“That’s because you haven’t kissed me yet.”
Caine came to a halt, and the ice-rink floor gave way, evaporating as easily as it had appeared. Taking Annalise by the shoulders, he held her out in front of him. “All of what you’ve just seen, and what you’re freaking out about is me kissing you?”
“I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it? But I just keep thinking back to that first time you kissed me and I—Caine, what’s going on? Why am I able to look you in the eye?”
He glanced downward at the pillar of ice he’d conjured up under her.
“Because I don’t want you to freak out, so I thought I’d just go ahead and kiss you, so you could relax.”
“I…Oh!”
She fell silent as he stepped in close. Their heights were similar enough with the ice pillar that he only needed to tilt her head up slightly. She shivered visibly as his finger hooked under her jaw.
He tried to reassure her. “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not scared. I’m excited.”