Chapter 6
Grigor stopped breathing as he watched the emotions flitting across Gayle’s expressive face.
The skepticism was a given, in view of Gayle’s stated disbelief in the things he had told her.
But that was quickly followed by a frown of contemplation.
Then came an easing of that tension.
Followed by speculation.
Possible acceptance, of his kiss, at least.
Lastly, desire.
It was unmistakably there, in the sensual caress of her gaze as she studied him from beneath lowered lashes.
Did Gayle like what she saw? Was his appearance as desirable to her as hers was to him?
Grigor may have chosen not to take any lovers for the past century, but he had never suffered from a lack of confidence in his appeal to women. Impossible to do so when he had always been able to take any woman he desired.
Except this one.
Gayle was his mate.
The one woman he had waited sixteen hundred years to claim.
Now that he had found her, spent time with her, knew her for the fierce and strong woman she was, he couldn’t wait any longer to mate her.
And yet he did wait, long and agonizing minutes, while Gayle decided if she was willing to kiss him.
Gayle had to choose to take him. Even if, as he was sure was the case, she still didn’t believe the sharing of one kiss and the ingestion of even the smallest drop of the aphrodisiac in his saliva would begin the mating process.
“Okay.” She finally nodded. “But if you think kissing you is going to seduce me into wanting to go to bed with you, then you’re going to be sadly disappointed,” she warned as she stepped toward him.
His mouth twisted with self-derision. “I’m not sure once I’ve had a taste of you that I will make it as far as the bedroom.”
“Wow,” Gayle breathed shakily.
“Wow what?”
“Now you look consumed with lust.” She gazed up at him, every ounce of her own need visible in her eyes.
Grigor stared at Gayle’s slightly parted and moist lips. Lips that he was going to kiss for the first time.
Mine.
Grigor drew in a shuddering breath as his dragon once again confirmed Gayle’s place in his life. If Grigor had any lingering doubt. Which he no longer did.
Gayle’s beauty and warmth, even her fierce independence and outspokenness, appealed to him as much as a glass of cool water would to a thirsting man in the desert. Everything about her was beautiful to him. Her rich red hair that almost reached the delicious curve of her bottom. Those challenging green eyes. Her mouth was a work of art, that fuller top lip speaking of her passion. Her body was…perfection; small uptilting breasts that would fit perfectly into his hands, slender waist, lissome hips and thighs, and he couldn’t wait to have those long and slender legs wrapped about his waist as he thrust inside her.
But as her mate, Grigor was sworn to protect her, even from herself, if necessary. “Do you accept the outcome of our kiss?”
She wrinkled her nose. “The mating thing?”
“Yes, the mating thing,” he confirmed patiently.
She shrugged. “Why not.”
His gaze sharpened. “You are not taking this seriously, Gayle. It is not a game. No matter your skepticism, the mating will happen if we kiss.”
“Okay.”
His eyes widened. “Okay?”
She frowned her irritation. “For God’s sake! Just kiss me.”
Not the most charming invitation Grigor had ever received, but it was so typical of his mate that he found himself chuckling. Chuckling, when he rarely smiled, let alone laughed.
Gayle’s breath caught in her throat as her hands moved up to rest lightly on Grigor’s shoulders, her body molding against his much harder one as his arms moved about her waist to pull her close against him. His earthy musk filled her senses, his body feeling so much warmer than her own. Warmer and harder, the evidence of his arousal, so long and thick, pressing against her abdomen as his head began to lower toward hers.
This was happening.
It was really happening.
Grigor Pendragon, a man even his brothers, all powerful men in their own right, listened to and respected, was going to kiss her, Gayle Nobody Wilson!
Gayle loved her sister unreservedly—even if she didn’t always show it. She was the younger sister, it was expected she would annoy her older sibling—but she had always felt slightly in awe of Holly too.
Holly was the one who always got straight A’s in exams, whereas Gayle’s only interest had ever been in computer technology and what she could do with it. Holly, even though she was only twenty-two herself at the time, had stepped up to take on guardianship of seventeen-year-old Gayle when their parents died. Holly had continued with her studies and become a doctor during the next five years, while Gayle had jumped through the hoops just enough to get her degree before turning to hacking as a profession rather than a normal job that paid a normal wage.
Gayle was the family fuckup.
But a man like Grigor Pendragon, so strong, powerful, and wealthy, would never desire or want a woman who wasn’t worthy of him. And there was no doubting, at this moment, he definitely wanted her.
She’d even go along with indulging this mating thing for the moment, if it meant Grigor kissed her.
He eyed her quizzically, his lips only centimeters away from claiming Gayle’s, his breath a warm caress across her lips. “Have you changed your mind?”
“Hell, no!”
“Then what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking if this man doesn’t kiss me soon, I’m going to have to make the first move.”
Grigor threw back his head and laughed.
My God, he did look absolutely stunning when he laughed. Those dark eyes glowed, his expression lightened, those chiseled lips parted to reveal even white teeth.
“Oh, to hell with this!” Gayle used the leverage of her hands on his shoulders to stand on tiptoe and kiss him on those sculpted lips. Hard.
They were much softer than they looked as they parted hesitantly before claiming hers in a kiss that completely took Gayle’s breath away and tilted her world on its axis.
If Gayle had initiated the kiss, then Grigor very quickly owned it. Owned her, his tongue exploring and then sliding between her parted lips, seeking out and claiming every hot, dark secret within.
Claiming Gayle as his.
Totally.
Unreservedly.
Tensed muscles flexed and bulged as her hands explored the powerful width of his shoulders and chest. The unyielding power of his long back. The taut curve of his backside as she squeezed and held on to those sculpted globes, pulling the long length of his erection into her—
“Grigor, I think— Oh shit!” Garrett groaned. “Sorry. I’ll come back later. No, I can’t come back later, damn it,” he carried on a conversation with himself. “Grigor, I need to talk to you. Now.”
A red and murderous haze built behind Grigor’s closed eyelids.
Rip.
Shred.
Kill!
That latter need was so strong, so imminent, Grigor had released Gayle to push her protectively behind him before he was even aware of having moved. His shoulders had bulked out, his hands once again claws, talons fully extended at their tips, his bared teeth sharp and murderous.
“I submit,” Garrett murmured as he held up his hands, head tilted, offering his throat in surrender.
His brother’s immediate capitulation gave Grigor some idea of how dangerous he must look right now. His shoulders would be almost twice their human size, eyes glowing a deep red, his face partially shifted. Even his hair would have taken on a dark red sheen.
He could feel Gayle trembling behind him, not from their shared pleasure and arousal of a few seconds ago, but the same fear he could see in Garrett’s swirling mercurial silver eyes.
The thought of Gayle’s fear, of her being afraid of him, Grigor, pierced through that red and murderous haze. It overrode his partial change, grounding him, until his shoulders returned to their normal size, talons retracted back into fingers rather than claws, and his teeth were no longer sharp and lethal.
Hopefully, his features had returned to normal too as he turned to face Gayle.
She looked up at him with huge and apprehensive eyes, the pupils completely blown, only a thin band of green at the edge of the black pupil.
“I think it’s for the best if you go to your bedroom now,” Grigor advised gently.
Gayle didn’t need telling twice.
She ran, not walked, to her guest bedroom, not stopping until she had closed and locked the door behind her. Not that she thought something like a flimsy door or a lock would stop Grigor if he should decide he wanted into the room.
Because there was no denying it any longer. She knew him for exactly what he was now.
She might have chosen to believe she was hallucinating earlier, her human mind unable to accept what she was seeing, but the changes in Grigor just now had been impossible to dismiss from her mind a second time.
Her human mind.
Because Grigor wasn’t human.
Not by any of the natural laws of physiology or sanity.
Gayle might not have seen his full dragon yet, but she no longer had any doubt he was exactly what he claimed to be. A dragon shifter.
Garrett’s submission to a bigger and more powerful predator told her that Grigor had been telling her the truth all along. All the Pendragon brothers really were dragon shifters.
Which meant Chloe’s books were totally true.
And Gayle, skeptical to the end, had just kissed Grigor, no doubt ingesting some of the mating aphrodisiac.
“What was so fucking urgent you had to interrupt me when I was with my mate?” Grigor demanded of his brother the moment Gayle ran from the room. “I could have killed you, damn it. For several seconds, I wanted to kill you.”
“I know,” Garrett accepted softly, his usual bantering humor completely missing from his apologetic demeanor. “I mean, I should have listened just now when Nathaniel and Bryn told me you were with your mate.”
“But you interrupted anyway.”
Garrett grimaced. “I thought you would want to know our intruder is back.”
Good. Because Grigor was definitely in the mood to rip someone’s head off their shoulders!
Unfortunately, the brothers’ search of the grounds surrounding the castle and beyond showed the intruder had evaded them for a second time. There were more used cigarette filters on the ground where Garrett said he had seen them standing, and once again, that strong aroma veiled any other, including the intruder’s scent. But there was no sign of the person themselves.
Garrett carefully picked up one of the used cigarettes and dropped it into a plastic bag. “Dylan might be able to test the DNA when he gets back.”
When their brother got back. Which, as Dylan and Holly were mating, could take days, possibly even weeks.
They couldn’t wait that long.
Not when they had no idea who the intruder was or why they were here.
He—
Grigor stilled, his dragon senses completely alert.
He had expected Gayle to retreat to her bedroom and stay there, that she would be too stunned by this second evidence of his partial shift to be able to deny the truth any longer.
Instead, his heightened senses told him his mate had left her bedroom and was now moving stealthily down the hallway and stairs, across the entrance hall to the deserted kitchen. Where she proceeded to leave by the back door, crossing the courtyard to where another door opened up onto the mountain beyond.
Gayle was leaving the castle.
Leaving him.
“Grigor?” Garrett prompted as Grigor shifted in front of him. “Where are you going?” he demanded as Grigor flexed his wings to their full span of twenty feet.
“To claim my mate,” he growled as he took to the air with a single beat of those massive wings.