Creatures: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, page 88
The Academy would punish her for her first failing, but they would take her back. She wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her most-assuredly short life looking over her shoulder for the next killer sent to execute her. Her way out of her predicament had just presented itself on a silver platter. Only an idiot would let the opportunity pass, or someone with a suicide wish, and she was neither. She had left the slums of Celestia behind long ago and promised herself that she would never be prey again.
Her training took control. Jade moved in the practiced way that made no sound and slid her feet to the floor. Stimulated by the motion, her wounded shoulder throbbed. Not enough to stop her, but enough to advise her against holding anything with that hand. Good thing that she was equally proficient with both arms and could use the other to carry out her plan.
She glided across the polished cherry wood flooring that felt warm under her soles. At his side of the bed, she leaned over the nightstand and her fingers picked up the dagger in one fluid movement that ended with the sharp edge against the High Lord’s throat.
A firm slash of the blade, and the carotid artery would be severed. Her target would bleed out fast, and when she buried the dagger deep into his heart, he wouldn’t have time to shift and heal himself. She would have to decapitate him—the only way to keep a shifter dead—but killing was sometimes a messy affair. Jade preferred a clean killing, but with Dragon—no, not Dragon, but her target—that wasn’t an option.
A simple jerk of her wrist was all that was needed to put in motion the last part her mission. Afterward, her body would be on autopilot, executing the actions without her mind having to engage.
Just one single movement would end Dragon’s life.
Not Dragon, she reminded herself. My target. The reason I am in this mess, hunted down like an animal.
Her hand held the dagger hovering over his throat, close but not touching yet. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe lest he awake. Her blood thrummed inside her ears.
Dragon slept on his back, with his arm arched over his head. The letters DS were branded on his forearm, the burnt edges contrasting with his tan skin. For an inexplicable reason, Jade fought the urge to trace the contour of the raised brand with her finger. She blinked, swallowing a curse, and pressed the blade against his throat. All she had to do was pull her arm, then slash.
He saved my life. The thought wasn’t welcome, but it wouldn’t go anywhere. Instead, it took root and refused to leave. He could’ve killed you in the cave but didn’t.
Her hand subtly trembled. A tremor due to her poor physical conditions while her nanites were still working on healing her wound. Hunger, exhaustion, having barely survived a fight could do that even to the most skilled of mercenaries. There’s nothing else going on here.
She firmly centered her body, redistributing her weight on both legs, and readied for the kill.
You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Dragon, her inner voice said.
The dagger felt heavy in her grip.
Dragon’s chest rose and fell, his face as relaxed as his body. He slept the innocent slumber. Such a magnificent specimen of a man. A good, honorable man—
He’s my target, and I must finish what I’ve started.
The blade caught a stray ray of pink light. She looked down and saw her face reflected on the polished surface.
A fat tear hung at the corner of her eye.
Jade forced her hand to press forward, but she couldn’t.
Dragon’s opened his eyes then, and at the same moment, his hand was on hers. His movement was a blur.
To Jade’s astonishment, he didn’t disarm her. Instead, he pressed both their hands down against his throat until his skin bled. She gasped.
“You won’t have another chance.” The control in his voice was scarier than the storm brewing behind his eyes, now a deep cobalt.
His hand enveloped hers in a cage. She could only push down as if he wanted to make the decision easier for her. The tear welled and escaped the edge of her eyelid, sliding down her cheek, followed by a second and a third. Her arm sagged under the weight of her decision. Her fingers released the blade but his punishing hold kept them in place. She crumbled around his hand, falling on her knees and unable to stop herself.
His other arm caught her by her waist and hauled her on top of him. The dagger clanked on the wooden floor as he cupped her face with both hands. His mouth took hers in a punishing kiss that reverberated with the violent current sizzling between them. Her body hummed, molding urgently against his, seeking pleasure.
Without breaking contact with her mouth, he moved her under him, hoisting his torso up on his bent arm. The sheet was a feeble barrier that only inflamed her senses until she reached down to pull it aside, but he pinned her hands to the headboard with one of his.
Her shoulder ached and she winced. Dragon immediately released her, guiding her wounded arm to the pillow with a tenderness that was at odds with the hunger in his kiss.
It was too much.
Something finally broke inside her, and she sobbed.
Chapter 25
At the sound of her heart-wrenching crying, Dragon jerked away from her mouth.
“Did I hurt you?” He moved to the side, freeing her body.
She folded in herself, making her long body small, her knees to her chest, her arms hugging her bent legs.
“Jade?” He wanted to touch her, caress her, make sure he hadn’t caused her physical pain.
She had tried to kill him, once again, but he couldn’t fathom hurting her. He should have known better than to try to domesticate a phoenix-panther; the fiery predator might consent to be a pet but it would always end up burning you. Still, he couldn’t help but feel this unbearable, irrational longing to make her his.
She hadn’t killed him though. Feigning sleep, he watched her under his lashes and saw how she hesitated when she could have inflicted the fatal blow. Of course, he would never allow her that, but she didn’t know he was awake when she positioned the blade against his throat. At her reluctance, his heart almost betrayed him. Another of the perks of not being mortal was that he could command his body to do anything he wished, including appearing lifeless if he so desired. But when she didn’t pull back to sever his carotid artery, he let himself hope that the sinuous assassin could be tamed yet.
His hand left the bedding to land on her wounded shoulder. His finger skimmed her cold skin, mindful not to apply any pressure. Her sobs mixed with a long shiver.
“I can’t kill you,” she whispered.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Dragon made light of her statement, but inside, his dragon roared in triumph and unabashed joy.
Under his touch, she uncurled, displaying her naked body that was too thin and yet so feminine. Her chest heaved as she gulped some air after all the crying, and her small breasts were covered in goosebumps, her nipples rigid under his stare.
“I can’t complete my mission, but I won’t be your whore.” Her voice sounded broken but louder.
As if slapped, he jerked away from her, raising his hand from her shoulder.
“You won’t have my body.” Her eyes bore into his, challenging him. “I won’t be willing,” she added.
He seethed. “I won’t force you.” He didn’t remind her that only a moment ago she had grabbed at the sheet separating them, trying to remove the flimsy barrier. Only his will had stopped things from going any further.
Uncovering his body, he swung his long legs to the side of the bed and pushed himself up. As he walked out of the bedroom, he grabbed his kilt and shirt and hastily donned them. As an afterthought, he picked up the holster and his ceremonial dagger. No need to give her ammunition.
In the foyer, Valerian and Lars turned at hearing the door slam.
“Is everything okay?” Lars asked while Valerian studied him.
“Everything’s perfect.” Dragon’s arousal had vanished the moment Jade compared what was passing between them to a paid exchange of sexual favors or worse yet, rape, but his anger was mounting.
His dark mood showed because Lars raised his hands in peace.
“What are you going to do with the mercenary?” Valerian pointed his chin at the bedroom he had just vacated. It seemed that his friend had only one question on his mind.
Dragon was about to unleash his tongue, but realized that his frustration was to blame, not his friend, who had reason to take him to task.
“I can’t get rid of her,” he finally admitted.
Two stunned friends stared back at him.
“I didn’t expect you to be so… honest,” Valerian said after a moment of silence.
“What’s happening to you?” Lars asked, brow furrowing.
Dragon passed his hand over his jaw, his growth scratching his skin. He dropped on the couch by the fireplace, one leg over the armrest. “I don’t know.” Leaning his head against the edge of the backrest, he looked at the wooden beams on the high ceiling, looking for an answer. “I’ve never felt so off-center.”
“She’s dangerous.” Valerian sat on the opposite divan.
Dragon scoffed and shook his head. “Don’t I know it. She just pressed my dagger against my jugular.”
“Dragon—” Valerian started, then stopped.
Dragon lowered his gaze to his friends. “Have you ever felt like you can’t breathe for want of someone?”
Valerian’s mouth flattened in a tight line. “Yes, I have.” His hand fisted. “Not something I’d recommend.”
“You can’t possibly entertain the thought of having an affair with the assassin.” Lars stared at Dragon, then turned toward Valerian as if looking for support. “It’s wrong on so many levels. I can’t even start to list them.”
Valerian’s lips quirked in a sad grin. “But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?” he asked Dragon. “It’s so wrong, somehow it makes it right to pursue what you can’t have.”
The pain in his friend’s voice was difficult to ignore, but the foyer’s door opened, interrupting their conversation.
Lauren strode in, followed by Gilda a few steps behind. Dressed in their evening gowns, the two women looked beautiful, and yet Dragon couldn’t muster any desire for them.
Lauren stopped in front of Dragon. “I heard that the assassin is still here.”
Dragon shot an accusing look at both Valerian and Lars, but they shook their heads.
“What’s going on?” Lauren stepped closer to the couch, her dainty slippers touching Dragon’s naked foot.
Gilda lingered behind, hovering by Valerian.
“It’s a matter of safety,” Dragon said, standing up.
She tilted her chin to meet his eyes but didn’t step back.
“Whose safety?” she asked.
“Yours.” True, but not the entire truth.
From a tactical point of view, it was good practice to keep your enemy close. With Jade by his side, he didn’t have to guess where the following attack would happen. Eventually, they would apprehend someone who would talk, and Dragon would gladly relinquish the prisoner to the Fifth Moon Confederation. As long as it wasn’t Jade.
Lauren canted her head. “Let’s be clear on something,” she said. “I won’t be humiliated. I don’t care what you do with that bitch you keep in your room as long as word of your unnatural affair doesn’t reach the rest of Solaria.”
The princess has unsheathed her claws. Good for her, Dragon thought, considering the woman in front of him with renewed respect.
“Do you have any other requests?” he asked.
Lauren’s eyes went to Gilda who slightly lowered her head, then she turned back to Dragon. “Once your heirs are conceived, we’ll move out to a villa of our choosing.”
It wasn’t unheard for dragons’ brides to live independent lives, but they usually remained under the same roof, so that their progeny grew up with the three parents. While Valerian and Lars’s befuddled expressions showed their shock, Lauren’s unorthodox request didn’t stir in Dragon the angry response it should have. Not because the idea of living separated from his children didn’t make him livid. The truth was he couldn’t envision conceiving those children with either Lauren or Gilda in the first place.
Chapter 26
Jade heard the princess lashing out at Dragon. The woman’s voice was high and slipped under the door, reaching her ears.
Dragon would marry those two women and have kids with them. That was the way of the dragon shifters. The intergalactic voyage from Earth to the Fifth Moon System had altered the shifters’ physiology, making it impossible for them to shift at will. Only when in life-threatening situations did their dragons come out to heal them as Jade had the rare opportunity to witness. Another consequence of prolonged exposure to cosmic rays was that shifters couldn’t procreate any longer. Special brides were engineered to bear them progeny. In the case of the dragon shifters, two princesses were created to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy, because dragon children were difficult to conceive. It was public knowledge, and until a day or two ago, it had meant nothing to Jade. The man shouldn’t have survived meeting her.
But now, she had tasted his passion, and the notion that he would kiss and touch another woman like he had kissed and touched her, coiled inside her like a malignant cancer. She pressed her palms against her stomach to lessen the dark twist causing her unbearable pain because it wasn’t physical. The emotion was raw and unexpected, and it wounded her the more she thought of what Dragon would do with his brides. They would be doing much more than kissing and touching.
A sad laugh escaped her lips. What was she thinking? How could she so easily forget she was an assassin sent to kill him? There was no future that included the two of them together. And she wasn’t going to live much longer anyway. Because, if it was true that she didn’t have a death wish, she most assuredly was an idiot and had squandered her one opportunity to make amends with the Academy.
She was a breathing corpse.
Jade had come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t kill Dragon—she just couldn’t accept a reality without him—but the Academy would never leave her alone. No amount of wishful thinking would create an alternate reality where she would get the man and live long enough to tell the tale.
Her fingers traced the white marks on her arm. She shivered and grabbed the sheet that smelled of Dragon.
The woman, Lauren, gave Dragon an ultimatum, then the click of wooden heels resonated fainter and fainter until it stopped, leaving only silence behind.
The door of the bedroom opened, and Dragon’s frame filled the entrance.
Jade clutched the sheet in her hands, covering her breasts. She had never been conscious of her body before—in the Academy, men and women lived in shared quarters—but her earlier wanton reaction to him had upset her deeply.
She wasn’t a virgin, and satisfying carnal pleasure wasn’t a priority for her. Men or women had never awakened in her more than a passing fancy, an itch easily gratified in a dark corner. A few minutes later, they would part ways and forget all about it. But her lips still tingled and her skin burned where Dragon touched her. There would be no forgetting where he was concerned.
And there was his tenderness. That quality of his was Jade’s downfall. She could handle violence and cruelty, but wasn’t equipped to withstand his soft, goodhearted side. During mind-blowing passion, Dragon still took care not to hurt her, even though she had just attempted to kill him. She couldn’t help but wonder why, when he could have any woman in the entire Fifth Moon System, he wanted her.
From the door, Dragon looked at her, his bright blue eyes devouring her in a slow gaze that started at her head and finished at her toes peeking from under the sheet.
She wanted him to jump on the bed and kiss her senseless. She couldn’t say yes to him, but wanted him nevertheless. It didn’t make any sense and it infuriated her.
“Did you say the truth before?” he asked. His voice was a low purr. “When you said you can’t kill me.”
She nodded. There was no reason to lie.
Satisfied, he nodded and said, “Are you going to collaborate and tell me what you know?”
She shook her head.
He left the door and was at her side before the panel closed. “I need a reason to keep you here.”
She looked at him, dying to raise her hand and caress his face. “I can’t tell you anything.” What would it be like to feel him inside her? To be one with a man like him? Her heart ached at the loss of something she would never experience.
Dragon’s hand reached her leg but didn’t touch her. Instead, he lowered it to the bed, a few centimeters from her. “Listen, I don’t want you to be my whore.”
Her heart thumped loud in her chest. What did he mean?
He continued, “There are forces at play, and it’s complicated, but I want you at my side.”
He was proposing to her, but it wasn’t the kind of offer she would ever be interested in. A courtesan, that’s what he meant. Even if he were free, Jade’s low station in life would never grant her more than a mistress position. And she was still an assassin. That hadn’t changed in the last five minutes.
“You must have faith in me—”
A sudden roar from outside drowned the rest of his words. They both turned to look at the terrace where Carellian lay on the floor, half of his body dangling from the edge, blood pouring from his wing and chest. Contessa surged in the air, her wings splayed as she protected the fallen draglet.
Dragon jumped off the bed and dashed toward the terrace. Reacting on pure instinct, Jade followed him, and only when the breeze and the rain battered her naked skin did she realize she wore nothing.
Carellian cried in pain. Dragon ran to his side as Jade hurried to the edge. She followed Contessa’s fierce gaze. The attacker remained hidden from Jade’s mortal sight, but the draglet hissed and roared at a precise point over the bridge connecting the palace to the satellite dwellings of the court, indicating that she could see the assassin.
She looked at Dragon who was passing his hand over Carellian’s wing, checking his injuries as the rain washed away the blood seeping from one of the wounds. Hurried steps resonated from his bedroom, and his friends burst onto the terrace. Jade turned back to the she-draglet.
