Chapter 4
“Another reporter, do you think?” Grigor prompted, having called a family meeting the moment he return to the castle.
His sister-in-law Chloe had entered their lives almost a year and a half ago as a reporter looking for a story.
Sightings by tourists visiting the area, of “helicopters” landing at Pendragon Castle late at night—actually the brothers in their dragon form—had hinted that illegal drugs and arms were being brought into the country.
Luckily, Chloe was also Nathaniel’s fated mate, ensuring that what she discovered as being the real secret of Pendragon Castle was never printed.
The brothers had been more careful to make sure to cloak their dragons after that scare, and they had also installed higher security inside the castle and out. But surveillance of their property didn’t mean a second reporter hadn’t picked up on the same story Chloe had. Technology was such in the twenty-first century that it was becoming more and more difficult to hide their identity as dragon shifters.
Gregori Markovic, head of London’s bratva, had recently revealed he knew of their existence.
Vladimir Romanov, the head of a Russian family of hereditary dragon shifters they had only recently come into contact with through Deryk’s mate, Izzy, was so damned arrogant, he didn’t see why they needed to cloak their appearance at all. He certainly didn’t when he was in Russia.
But it was different here. Wales was a much smaller country, for one thing, and the eight Pendragon brothers were a different breed of dragon shifters from the Russians. The brothers had all been born in the fifth century within one week of each other, on the island of Annwn, the Welsh Underworld, to a single human father and their different goddess mothers.
The brothers had left Annwn, an invisible island off the Welsh coast, once they reached the age of thirty-five and could shift into dragons. They weren’t allowed to return, not even for a visit, until they had met and claimed their fated mate.
Nathaniel, Deryk, and Bryn had all briefly gone back to Annwn during this past year to visit their goddess mothers and introduce them to their fated mates. But all of them had preferred to come back here to the Welsh mainland when that visit came to an end. Although the mating bite would now ensure their mates would live for as long as they did, they were still human and belonged in this world, not Annwn. Besides, after sixteen hundred years, the brothers had grown accustomed to living in the human world too.
But if someone else, another reporter, possibly, had now discovered their secret…
Chloe shrugged. “I can discreetly ask some of the contacts I still have in London, but I haven’t heard any gossip on the subject the few times I’ve been there since Amelia was born.” Chloe was now the mother of six-month-old Amelia Tegan, and an international bestselling author of a paranormal series of books about dragon shifters and their fated mates.
Nathaniel nodded. “It’s a start.”
Grigor frowned. “I suggest, once we’ve eaten dinner, that we take turns keeping extra watch from the castle roof.”
Nathaniel turned to him. “You’re sure of what you saw?”
He raised dark brows. “I am not having hallucinations because of my dragon’s need to claim our mate, if that is your implication.”
Bryn winced. “You were pretty out of it when you left here.”
His jaw tightened. “My dragon’s need is now under control,” he repeated firmly.
“And your own need?” Deryk drawled.
Grigor shot him a dark glance. “That is also under control.”
Garrett chuckled. “Never in a millennia would I ever have put you and Gayle together.”
He bristled. “My mate is beautiful and courageous.”
“She’s also been a pain in our ass since she arrived here two days ago—”
“Grigor!” Nathanial snapped.
Which was when Grigor realized he had moved with preternatural speed and his hand, long talons fully extended, was now wrapped tightly about Garrett’s throat as he pinned his brother against the wall.
Grigor’s eyes narrowed on his brother in warning before he released Garrett and retracted his talons. “In future, you will treat Gayle with the respect she deserves. If her behavior is ever in need of correction, then I’ll be the one to administer it.”
“Fine,” Garrett muttered. “But I would have thought, both being computer geeks, Gayle would be more suited to Aeran than— Okay.” He held his hands up in submission as Grigor gave a warning growl. “I get it, Gayle is your mate.”
“What do you mean by ‘in need of correction’?” Izzy frowned her concern.
“Gayle’s attempt to leave this afternoon shows she is…headstrong.” Grigor chose his words carefully. “It has already landed her in trouble with the Russian bratva. Admittedly, trouble she managed to extract herself from—”
“Along with gaining fifty thousand pounds and a job offer,” Garrett reminded lightly.
Grigor’s eyes narrowed. “A job offer she will not be accepting.” He looked at each family member in turn. “I shall be the one to curb Gayle’s impulsive behavior in future—”
“Good luck with that, buddy,” Gayle taunted as she breezed into the sitting room, having changed into a soft sweater in the same dark green as her eyes, along with the usual ragged jeans. “And I haven’t decided yet about the job offer.” She leveled flinty eyes on Grigor. “Nor am I sure who or what gave you the impression you’re the boss of me.”
“I did.” Grigor was her mate, damn it. Was sworn to protect and care for her for the rest of their lives. Even from herself, if it became necessary.
She gave a dismissive shrug. “As I said, good luck with that.” She looked at the rest of the family gathered in the room, all of them silently listening to their exchange. “Have I missed something?”
Unfortunately, Grigor knew Gayle was missing several pieces of vital information that would have made her a part of this meeting. She had no idea she was in a room with six dragon shifters and three of their mates. Or that she was now one of those mates herself. Grigor intended enlightening her in regard to that at the earliest opportunity.
Tegan, Bryn’s three-months-pregnant mate, rose to her feet. “It was our turn to prepare dinner this evening, and we’ve made spaghetti bolognese. We should all go and eat it while it’s still hot.”
Gayle definitely had the feeling the Pendragon family were keeping something from her. A feeling not dissipated as they all sat around the huge dining table and ate dinner together, despite the family’s best efforts to involve her in their conversations. Never having particularly been a people person or part of a large family herself, Gayle preferred to listen rather than comment.
It didn’t help that Grigor didn’t take his dark eyes off her for the whole of the meal, rarely speaking either as he sat broodingly at the head of the table.
Noticeably, no one mentioned the elephant in the room, namely Grigor’s weird behavior earlier this evening.
Seated to his left at the dinner table, Gayle could admit, to herself, at least, that she was also totally physically aware of him during the meal. Of his earthy male essence combined with a minty smell. The strength and power of his huge hands as they deftly wielded the eating utensils. The heat of his muscular body—his massive and muscular body, she corrected ruefully; even Grigor’s muscles had muscles.
Pity he was also weird as hell. He was also, she acknowledged self-derisively, a little out of her league. Make that more than a little. This man could eat her up for breakfast and still be ravenous.
By the time they reached the coffee stage of the meal, all Gayle wanted to do was escape back upstairs to the guest bedroom she’d been given for her stay here.
“Gayle and I will make dinner tomorrow evening,” Grigor announced as they all stood up from the table.
She gave him a startled glance. “We will?”
He gave an arrogant inclination of his head. “Presuming you can cook rather than just order in takeaway food.”
Gayle felt the heat of a blush in her cheeks. “Who ratted on me? Garrett?” She gave him an accusing glare.
“Truth is truth,” he came back unapologetically.
“I did that for one night, and you wouldn’t have known about it if you hadn’t been outside the hotel all night, spying on me—”
“Protecting you from the Russian bratva,” he corrected dismissively.
“Which, as it happens, I didn’t need protecting from at all,” she reminded smugly.
“Gayle.”
It was really starting to irritate her that Grigor thought he could say her name in that forceful and reproachful tone and expect her to actually back down. As if!
“I can cook,” she assured him dismissively.
He nodded. “You will come to my study with me now. There are some things I need to discuss with you.”
“Is that a good idea, Grigor?” Chloe looked alarmed.
Gayle wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of being alone with Grigor again either. Besides which… “It’s usually polite to ask rather than issue an order.” She raised challenging brows.
His jaw tightened, and his eyes had once again taken on that eerie glitter. Couldn’t anyone else see that red glow in those dark depths, or was Grigor’s insanity starting to rub off on her?
“Will you please do me the honor of accompanying me to my study, Gayle?”
She wasn’t sure who was more surprised by Grigor’s modulated request, her or his family, who had all stilled as they stood up from the table.
It was like some weird tableau from Roman times, with all the gladiators freezing as the lion entered the arena. Grigor being the lion, of course.
Well, if that analogy played out, then she was one of the gladiators!
“Yes, as you asked so nicely,” she taunted. “But I reserve the right to scream for help if you start acting weird again,” she added in warning.
Grigor’s mouth twitched, as if he was holding back a smile.
It made Gayle wonder what he would look like when he smiled fully or laughed. No doubt he would be even more lethally attractive than when he scowled in that brooding way. Although the grimness of his natural expression and lack of laughter lines about his eyes and mouth seemed to indicate it wasn’t something he did often, if at all. He certainly hadn’t done either during dinner, had seemed to prefer to keep staring at her and making her uncomfortable rather than joining in any of his family’s conversation.
“I will endeavor to try my best not to act weird again,” he drawled.
“Excellent,” she taunted. “Then I’m ready if you are.”
Grigor led the way to his study, doubting very much that Gayle would ever be ready to hear what he was about to tell her. It was completely out of her sphere of understanding, out of any human’s understanding. Izzy, being part of a human family who had served the Romanov family for many centuries, had been completely open to the fact Deryk was another dragon shifter. But Chloe, Tegan, and Holly, having no prior knowledge of dragon shifters, had totally freaked out when they learned not only of their existence, but that they were Nathaniel’s, Bryn’s, and Dylan’s fated mates.
No doubt Gayle would be just as unaccepting initially. Although Grigor had no doubt his mate would put up her usual front of dismissive bravado. The thought was enough to make him smile again.
“You’re starting to freak me out with all the smiling you’re doing,” Gayle told him uncomfortably as they entered the study.
Grigor closed the door behind her before gesturing for her to sit on the chair in front of his desk while he went to sit behind it. But he knew the desk would be no protection at all if his dragon should decide to take charge. “You would rather I scowled?”
“I think it’s a more natural expression for you, yes.”
Grigor wondered what Gayle would say if she was to learn that until Chloe, Tegan, and Izzy entered their lives, with their own brand of human humor, it had been decades, possibly centuries, since he’d last smiled, and even now, his smiles were rare. Within a few hours of meeting his mate for the first time, Gayle had made him smile not once but twice in a matter of minutes.
Maybe the fates had known what they were doing after all by choosing Gayle as his mate.
“Perhaps,” he allowed.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Grigor’s heart had started to pound loudly, his senses reeling as Gayle’s heady and unique perfume seemed to invade the very pores of his body in the close confines of his study. “Did Holly talk to you about my family at all?” he continued determinedly.
She wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. “In what way…?”
“In any way.”
She gave a shrug. “I know that you and your ancestors have owned and lived in this castle for centuries. Those ancestors’ eight suits of armor in the entrance hall are pretty impressive, by the way. That there were once ten brothers but that two of them died. That must have really sucked!” she sympathized. “You’re obviously all very wealthy. I can see that you’re all too damned good-looking for your own or any woman’s good,” she added moodily. “That you’re also all big, scary-ass men no one in their right mind would want to mess with.”
“Does that mean you’re not in your right mind?” He arched arrogant brows.
Gayle made a face, half inclined to stick her tongue out too. But she managed to resist on the basis that would just be too childish. “Ha-ha.”
To be honest, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure what she was right now. This, being alone with Grigor, was playing havoc with her senses, even more so than sitting next to him at the dinner table.
He wasn’t her type at all, the few boyfriends she’d had having all been her own age and being students just as hard up for money as she was. Grigor Pendragon oozed sexual experience, power, and wealth. He also, despite her outward rudeness to him, made her nervous. On several levels.
Looking the way he did, sexual experience was a given, whereas she had none.
His power was tangible.
The extreme wealth was disconcerting.
There was that whole weirdly intense thing he had going on too.
But the most worrying of all was that right now, a part of her wanted to fling herself across his desk, grab him by the front of his black polo shirt, and claim and ravish those chiseled and sensuous lips.
Where the hell that need came from, she had no idea.
She should keep her distance from this man. Grigor had been more right about her earlier than she was comfortable with him knowing.
Apart from her sister, Holly, Gayle didn’t let people close to her because they had a habit of leaving. Her parents. Friends. Boyfriends. Even Holly, whom Gayle pushed away more often than not, was now going to marry Dylan and move to live in Wales.
Gayle had found it was better not to care about anyone. That way, she wouldn’t and couldn’t be hurt when they up and left her life. Which everyone but Holly did.
Except, now that Holly was going to marry into the Pendragon family, they would all become permanent, if distant, figures in Gayle’s life too.
Gayle wasn’t at all happy about that now that she knew how attracted she was to Grigor Pendragon, a man so far out of her reach as to be laughable.
“So, Holly did not say much about us.” Grigor frowned.
Gayle gave a dismissive snort. “Considering she’d known your brother only a matter of days before agreeing to marry him, I don’t think Holly knows that much about you either.”
His brows rose. “You’re unhappy about them being together?”
She stood and began pacing, too restless to remain seated any longer. “I think she could maybe have waited awhile, until she knows Dylan better, before jumping into bed with him, yes.”
“You are a virgin.” This time it was a smug, self-satisfied statement rather than a question.
Gayle felt the warmth in her cheeks. “Can we leave whether or not I still have my V card out of this conversation?” she snapped.
“Your V card…?”
She rolled her eyes. “My virginity. You really are cut off from civilization out here in the wilds of Wales if you’ve never heard that phrase before,” she taunted at his disapproving expression.
Grigor leaned back in his chair to look at her through narrowed lids. “Considering most of that civilization is full of drug and arms dealers, terrorists and murderers, along with abusive husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers, perhaps that isn’t the bad thing you’re implying it to be.”
“Maybe.” Gayle couldn’t deny any of those things Grigor had just named. It really was a fucked-up world out there.
It was also cleaner and fresher out here in the countryside. The air here had knocked her out the minute her head touched the pillow the past two nights. She also found the lack of people and amenities calming rather than boring. As long as she had access to the internet, she was happy, which the advanced computer technology, owned by Aeran, ensured she did.
Not that she was about to tell Grigor any of that. Let him continue to think she was a brat who had gone into a decline without the modern conveniences of a coffee shop on every street corner and access to the abundance of the nightlife in London. Neither of which she ever frequented.
“What are you trying to hide from me, Gayle?”
She gave him a startled glance. “Are you a mind reader now?” she came back defensively.
“Where you are concerned? I am certainly hoping to be,” he answered enigmatically.
Gayle eyed him warily. “Can this conversation wait until tomorrow? I’m feeling a little tired—”
“You are not tired,” he dismissed correctly. “Nor can this conversation wait another minute.” Grigor rose abruptly to his feet, instantly dominating the room as his sheer size seemed to swallow up all the air and space. “I am about to tell you a story that is sixteen hundred years old—”
“History was never my favorite subject.” She grimaced.
“Then it is about to become so.”
Gayle recognized a man on a mission when she saw one. Grigor wasn’t going to let her leave his study until he had told her whatever it was he wanted to say. “Okay.” She plonked herself back in the chair before putting her booted feet up on the front of the desk. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.”
Grigor allowed Gayle’s lack of respect for the furniture to pass. This time. Because what he was about to tell her was far more important than a few possible scrape marks made by her boots on the front of his desk.