Chapter Eight
All through their dinner at the Chinese buffet restaurant, Cassandra avoided mentioning her meeting with Margaret. Edmund impressed her with the way he handled the two Asian waitresses who lingered by their table. Offering to clear his plate and refill it as soon as he finished. By the time they’d left, the two waitresses had worked up their nerve to asking him for an autograph.
Once they returned to their secluded home in the woods, he took her hand. Feeling her hand against his warm palm made her heart race. He hadn’t touched her since they left Seattle. Her body flushed with heat like a wanton teenager, remembering the sensations he released from within her.
A battle warred inside her. Part of her—a large part—wanted him to claim her. Anticipation sent a shiver down her spine. She longed to show him exactly how he made her feel. Maybe because the society of her family forbid it. Maybe because he was a dragon. Maybe because she liked him, almost loved him.
And the more time she spent with him, the more she felt herself falling head over heels for him.
She couldn’t do this right now.
She had the meeting with Margaret.
What would happen?
Maybe in time she could settle down, when the Keepers elected change and Margaret no longer posed a threat to her family.
They walked together, along a lit path into the woods. “I need to tell you something. But first, I need you to promise you won’t go disappearing on me for several days again.”
He took her other hand, pulled her close. “I will control my temper, and I didn’t ever go far from you.”
Cassandra’s gut reaction told her to trust him. She swallowed hard, preparing for his reaction. “I’ve made contact with Margaret, and I’ve arranged a meeting with her.”
Edmund released her. He ran his hand and ran it through his hair. “And this is why you took me to meet your mother, to understand her blackmailing you?”
She shouldn’t have been surprised, after all, her father had always warned Cassandra trouble would catch up with them sooner or later. “She is all I have left. I have to protect her.” Cassandra took a deep breath. “Which is why I need you to take me to Vancouver.”
“So that is where she has fled.”
“And there is actually one more thing I need to tell you.” Cassandra watched him carefully. “Margaret Moldvan is my mother’s half-sister.”
“I see,” he said. And to his credit, he didn’t appear as horrified as she expected. “Are all you Keepers related?”
She laughed, trying to ease the tension she felt. “No. There are few families left in our circle, so it would seem as it would be so, but not all of us are. There are the Moldvans, Doylans, Balkans, and Rankins.”
Edmund snagged her in his magnetic gaze. Instead of the judgment she cringed to see, she found compassion and kindness in his eyes. “How long has your mother been…”
“Since my father’s accident,” she finished for him.
Edmund nodded. “And this meeting with Margaret?”
“Friday at the Dungeon.”
“Dungeon?”
“It’s Drake’s place. A strip club in Vancouver.” At Edmund’s deepening frown she said, “Another one of Margaret’s operations.”
She felt the unexpected anger boil up inside him. He tried his best to hide his feelings, but she sensed them, feeling them as much as her own.
“You understand I mean to shut her down. I need proof for our counsel to show the Keepers haven’t been obeying their own rules to help Blake and Emily with their own union. And I mean to free you of this blackmail.”
Cassandra nodded, spoke slowly. “I’d like that very much, but I don’t see how. I’ve tried for years to protect the fiú in Margaret’s dealing. Then Drake took it on himself, he freezes the ones that come from his horde. I don’t get many whole eggs sent to the gallery anymore. Just the empty shells of when they hatch from his lair below the club or from Uncle Istvan at the hatchery.”
His jaw tensed. She held on to his hand, hoping he would not storm off and leave her again as he promised. “The art is yours. The paintings, it is you who decorates and makes sculptures out of the empty shells.”
She looked away from him. “The first one I painted, I gave to a family whose son hatched from that egg. Margaret convinced my parents it was a way to add funds to help the hatchery since the government had cut funding to it several years ago. Then after I’d bought the gallery, my father died, and Margaret pulled me into making her deals as you now know.”
A growl escaped him. “This stops now.”
Alarmed, Cassandra placed her hands on his chest. Her heart pounding with fear. “You can’t. Margaret’s too powerful. She’ll send Drake and Raymond and try to kill you like she did Jacques. And then my mother…”
Edmund tilted her face up with his hands. His eyes changed, no longer human. “No harm will ever come to you or your mother. I will arrange for her to be taken to our safe haven on the island. Even now, your uncle, Emily’s father, is there out of Margaret’s reach.”
“But Drake…”
Edmund growled again. “Cannot touch what is mine!”
And she wanted to be his. God help her, all fear aside, she belonged to him.
Cassandra pulled his head down, crushing her lips to his. Edmund drove his tongue inside her mouth, fire licking between them. One taste of his raw need, and Cassandra felt her knees almost give way.
It wasn’t the lustful kind of need. She could have refused him that. It was the kind of need penetrating her heart, taking over her senses, and stripping her of any last reservations.
The kind of need that told her she’d fallen recklessly, hopelessly in love with this dragon.
“Cassandra,” her name rumbled deep in his chest as they both came up for air.
“I’m yours,” she breathed. There was no going back. Not now. Not that she’d admitted these feelings to herself.
He slid his tongue across her bottom lip and swept his tongue back into her mouth. His arm snapped around her back, bringing her against him.
She whimpered, tugging him closer. So close, she wanted to be part of him. His scorching kiss, possessive grip, and his throaty growl excited her. Then he broke away from her. “Leave now, unless you wish for me to claim you.”
Beneath the tall Aspens and Mountain Ash, he allowed his arm to drop away from her. His nostrils flared, and she trembled. Her heart thudded, her mind screaming for her to run. Her heart pumping as erratic as her pulse. She felt his stare, waiting for her to answer or flee.
She licked her bottom lip, tasted him, like Mandarin orange and cashews from their supper. Was it possible to orgasm from a kiss?
She hoped not. Seeing his broad chest heave, she knew there was more she wanted to explore.
Stepping back from him, Cassandra took her shirt by the bottom hem, pulling it up over her head. His breath caught, his fists clenched at his sides, watching her remove her boots, first one foot than the other
Tilting her head, unsnapping her jeans and sliding them down to the ground, she stood before him in noting more than her silk bra and panties. His heated gaze enough to keep her warm.
He took her in his arms, wrapping them around her. “You are sure. Once I claim you…”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I have this ache,” she whispered. “Only you can fill.” She kissed him, slow. Sweet. Deliberate.
She’d never tried to seduce a man before, not like this. Not in the woods, with the lights of the trail casting shadows around them.
She tugged up his shirt, pressing her hands to his warm, hard abs. As her hand dipped to his waist band, he tensed. “Wait. Not here.”