Chapter Two
The ride in Lucian’s big black sedan was smooth as glass.
Arabella was riding shotgun to Cinaed’s tensely-hunched form in the driver’s seat, but this wasn’t the stretch limo they’d taken to Seattle the last time, and Lucian wasn’t in the car with them. Nor was he in the keep, as far as she could tell during her wanderings with Cinaed as her shadow. Not that Lucian’s right-hand-dragon was any use—the man barely spoke. Not in the keep. Not in Arabella’s expansive guest apartment. Not during this long, two-hour drive to Seattle.
The silence was making her skin itch.
“For the love of God, Cinaed,” she said, finally, all in one breath. “Please say something. More than two words.”
“No, thank you.” He kept his eyes glued to the road.
Her groan was inarticulate, near-madness. She reached across the bench seat and pounded her fist into his mountain-sized shoulder. It was like smashing her hand into granite, but she gritted her teeth to not let out the small yelp of pain that caused.
Cinaed winced and cowered into the door, but she couldn’t imagine she actually hurt him in any way. His dazzling green eyes roved over her like he thought she was crazy. And she was. Three days of stifling silence would drive anyone mad. Three days of trying to hunt down Lucian to get him just to talk to her. And nothing to show for it except Cinaed’s stoic face staring balefully at her.
She let her hand fall to the seat between them. Maybe she was an idiot to think Lucian Smoke actually loved her and was just pushing her away because he was broken by the loss of his mate. He’d done nothing to confirm her thoughts about that. In fact, he’d done nothing at all except let her stay at the keep when she’d refused to leave.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, still staring at her hand. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”
A small muffled sound came from the driver’s seat. She looked up. Cinaed’s eyes were crinkled at the corners, and his mouth was twisting, fighting a smile, even as his gaze was locked on the road.
“You are fucking laughing at me.” She contemplated hitting him again.
“Aye.” He threw her a smirk.
“Because I have a weak-ass punch, and you’re a freakishly strong dragon?” She seriously wanted to smack that smirking face, even if it broke her knuckle.
“Because it took you three days.” His smile went broad. “I thought sure you’d be slitting my throat in the middle of the night by the second one.”
So he knew how frustrated she was. Of course, he did. The whole keep had to be laughing at her ridiculous stubbornness in sticking around for a dragon—their prince, no less—who obviously didn’t want her. He had flat-out rejected her, and she was just hanging around like a love-sick puppy.
Her mind flashed back to the girl who had been in Leonidas’s apartment. These guys were so gorgeous, they had to have stalker-women after them all the time. Arabella was probably just the latest nutjob who wouldn’t leave.
Her shoulders dropped as the rest of the fight went out of her. She folded her arms across her chest and stared out the windshield. The morning sun was bright, no clouds for a change, and it seemed like everything in Seattle glittered with newness. She squinted against it, irrationally angry at the city for gleaming while her thoughts were so mired in darkness.
The silence stretched inside the car as the tires chewed through the miles and brought them nearer the city. What the hell was she thinking? It seemed all romantic and grand-gesture-ish when she proclaimed her determination to stay, but since then, she’d been mired in second- and third-guessing. Did she really love Lucian Smoke? She’d known the man for less than a couple weeks. Was she really ready to sign up for mating for life?
She had vowed not to leave the keep until he stopped ignoring her, but Lucian wasn’t even at the keep right now—he would probably never know she had left. This was just a short run to the city, then she’d be back at the keep, but her law practice definitely needed her. The scanner had broken down, and their shoestring budget didn't have tech support. Just her friend Rachel, and she was frankly terrible at it. That was actually Arabella’s job. In fact, all of it was her job, and she was falling woefully behind. She and Rachel had been juggling things over the phone and the computer, but Arabella needed to tell her best friend that she’d be staying indefinitely at the keep.
Unless that was utter foolishness.
Maybe she should just cut her losses and have Cinaed drop her at her small hole of an apartment where she would get on with the business of forgetting the hot dragon shifter who had swooped into her life and changed what she knew about the world—and men—forever. It was obvious that Lucian’s love for her—if it was ever really that strong in the first place—wasn’t strong enough to break through the darkness that was plaguing him.
She sighed and blinked into the sunshine. She was a fool to think she was the woman who could cure him of the pain from his past. That much was obvious. She should probably clear out and make way for a woman who might be able to do that for him.
“Don’t give up, my lady.” Cinaed’s voice was soft, the teasing completely gone.
She jolted a little, not expecting him to speak. “What? I thought you were…” She gestured vaguely at his bulky form in the driver’s seat, dressed in the same formal clothes as he wore to the city before—a beautifully cut suit, white starched shirt, and black tie. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get me out of the keep. To send me home so you could stop babysitting me.” From the beginning, Cinaed had made it clear that he would drive her home at any moment, she just had to say the word. Those were Lucian’s orders, and Cinaed had never given a hint that he disagreed with them in any way.
“I’ve been forbidden to talk to you about my prince. Or the treaty. Or… anything really.” Cinead held her gaze for a long moment before looking back to the road. “I’ve not been forbidden from encouraging you to stay.”
She stared at his profile. His eyes solemnly examined the road. “You think I’m doing the right thing by staying.”
“I think I can’t discuss the reasons why I think you should stay.” He peered at her again. “But you should. Stay, I mean.”
She smiled. “So… encouraging me is a loophole in your orders.”
Cinaed sighed and looked back to the road. “Not that it would matter, should the prince find out. Lucian would still have my head on a pike.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Arabella said, her smile growing. “That’s not the kind of dragon he is.”
Cinaed raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Arabella twisted to face him better, propping her arm on the seat back. “So, you can’t tell me anything, but I can tell you things. And you can let me know if I’m correct.”
He frowned. “I don’t know about that.”
“I know Lucian lost his mate.” A giddy rush was filling her. Maybe she could finally get some answers, even if in a round-about way, that could help her decipher the mystery of the Dragon Prince of the House of Smoke. “It was horrible, and he blames himself. He doesn’t want to go through that again, and who could blame him? Am I right so far?”
“I can’t say anything about that.” Cinaed’s frown was growing darker.
“I already know all that, Cinaed. The fae prince, Zephan, showed it to me.”
He flashed her a wary look but said nothing.
“And I’m not a fool,” she added. “Anyone could see how broken he is about her.” She swallowed, and all the doubts came flooding back. Who was she to think she could fix something that horrible? Especially when she was so in the dark about everything in this magical realm. “The thing is that all the rest is murky. He said he’d die if he doesn’t mate and produce a dragonling… but then he kind of implied that was a lie. I don’t know what parts are lies and what is the truth. And he won’t talk to me, Cinaed.”
The man just gripped the steering wheel tighter and stared straight ahead.
“There’s this treaty thing that says he has to produce a dragonling, and somehow the fae are involved in that, and he said something about keeping the realms apart, but I don’t really understand any of it. What is this treaty? Can I get a copy of it? I know how to read a contract, Cinaed. Maybe there’s a loophole in that. Or something…” She stopped because he was wincing and pressing his lips together.
She wasn’t getting anything out of him this way.
She softened her voice. “He’s hurting, Cinaed. I know that for sure.”
He peered at her again.
“He’s hurting, and that tears me apart.” She swallowed down the tears that were suddenly threatening at the back of her throat. “He told me about losing his mate, and all I could think about was holding him. Stopping the pain in his eyes. Is that love? I’m not even sure I know. Maybe I’m just a sucker for good-looking men in pain.” Despair was creeping back into her voice. She could feel it edging darkness into her mind.
Cinaed pulled the car to a stop.
Arabella was startled to see they had arrived at her law office. She blinked back the tears that were hanging out at the corners of her eyes and put her hand on the door to open it. Cinaed stopped her with a touch on her shoulder that quickly vanished. She turned back to him.
His green eyes were intent on her. “I can’t tell you anything about my liege, but I can say, without a doubt, that you are a strong woman, Arabella Sharp. A noble one. The kind whose heart beats for others, and who can see things with not just her eyes, but her soul.” One corner of his mouth tipped up. “And you’re stubborn. The fact that you’ve stayed at the keep…” His eyes widened like he thought he had said too much, and he dropped his gaze to the seat.
Arabella held her breath, waiting.
He looked up again, his gaze intense. “It says things about you. Things no dragon would miss.”
Her heart lurched. Lucian noticed. She was just sure that was what Cinaed meant. Lucian might be trying to ignore her, but the fact that she hadn’t given up yet was having an impact on him. And if it was having an impact, then maybe she could eventually reach him. Then she could break through his stubbornness and find a way around the walls he’d built to encase his heart like a tomb.
“Then let’s make this trip to my office quick,” she said with a small smile. “And get back to the keep.”
Cinaed’s smile blazed forth. He really was a heart-stoppingly beautiful man, with those green eyes and reddish-brown hair and fresh-faced smile. If Arabella’s heart hadn’t already been taken by the brooding prince, she could fall for the kind heart Cinaed seemed to have as well.
He hopped out of the car and hurried around to her side to open the door.
She was all smiles, a new lift in her heart until she turned to face the front door of her office. It was open. And not just open… broken. The shiny new hinges had held, but the wood near the top of the doorframe had splintered when the metal hinges had pulled free from the wall, leaving the door at a cant.
“Rachel,” she gasped, her feet momentarily frozen to the sidewalk.
Cinaed roared and moved all at once, a blur of black suit as he raced to the door, shoved it open, and tore inside. Arabella unlocked her knees and ran after him. It took a split second for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness of the office, and in that blind moment, she heard Rachel scream.
“Rachel!” Arabella groped forward, her vision slowly fading back.
A man in a rumpled t-shirt had Rachel up against the wall, the bulk of his body covering her as he held her by the throat. He’d twisted around to see who had slammed through the door.
“Stay back—” the man started to say, shaking a fist at her and Cinaed, but Cinaed had already reached him. With a roar, Cinaed grabbed the man by the neck and yanked him off his feet. Then he slammed the man against the wall and pinned him with his feet dangling. The man clawed at his throat, where Cinaed was quickly choking him to death. Cinaed spared only a single growl for the man before turning to Rachel, still standing stunned next to them, braced against the wall where the man had held her prisoner.
“Are you all right?” Cinaed’s voice was gentle for her.
Rachel nodded erratically, eyes wide.
Arabella rushed to her side, gathering her and pulling her away from the wall and the two men. Only then did she recognize the man—he was one of Rachel’s many low-life exes, the latest one who hadn’t liked her love-em-and-leave-em attitude one bit. His name was Simon, and he’d been stalking her cell phone for weeks, leaving crazy-ass messages. In all of Arabella’s personal drama, she’d forgotten. Guilt speared through her as she hugged her best friend.
Rachel was shaking. “I locked the door. I swear I locked the door.”
Arabella hugged her harder. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” She answered Cinaed’s concerned look with a nod. Rachel was tougher than anyone Arabella knew—she’d recover. It was a sad truth about both their lives that this was far from the first time men had threatened them. Or tried to kill them. Once Rachel had a minute to calm down, and she’d give some serious shit to this asshole.
Cinaed turned back to the man, leaning close and getting in his face. “You disgust me.” The snarl was rich with danger. The man’s eyes bulged. Cinaed’s body blocked most of their view, but Arabella could see his hand—the one wrapped around Simon’s throat—had shifted partially into talons.
Oh shit… “Cinaed, don’t kill him!”
“The world won’t miss the likes of this one.” Cinaed’s voice was cold.
Simon was clawing desperately at his throat.
Rachel broke away from Arabella’s hold around her shoulders and stalked over to the two men. Cinaed glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow—he didn’t stop choking the man, but Arabella could see he had shifted his talons back to human fingers before Rachel could see.
She jabbed a finger in the dying man’s face. “You fucking asshole! I told you to stay away from me. Maybe now you’ll listen!” Her finger was shaking—she curled it into a fist like she might punch Simon in the face, but then she took a step back, every inch of her quivering. Only it seemed more from anger now than fear.
Cinaed was watching her, eyes alight.
She finally met his gaze. “Don’t kill him.”
“It would give me great pleasure to do so,” Cinaed said casually. And the way he was peering into Rachel’s eyes, it seemed like there was more that would give him pleasure than just slaying the guy who had threatened her. Namely, getting it on with her best friend.
Not again. What was it with these two?
Rachel seemed to be fighting a smile. “I can think of something much more pleasurable—”
“For God’s sake.” Arabella strode over to interrupt the ogle-fest going on between the two of them. “Let him go, Cinaed,” she ordered.
He flicked a look at her, then at Simon. The man’s eyes were rolling back in his head.
Cinaed released him, and Simon slumped to the floor, leaning against the wall and gasping. Cinaed curled a lip in disgust. “You’re lucky you have your life. Take it and leave. Next time, I’ll be quicker and give the lady no choice but to mourn your carcass.”
Rachel’s eyes were wide, giving Arabella a look that said, Is this guy for real?
Arabella knew the feeling.
Simon scrambled to his feet and stumbled out the door, which was still hanging off its hinges.
Cinaed gave his retreating back one last snarl, then turned back to Rachel. Her gaze whipped to him, eyes glittering. “Damn,” was all she said, and Arabella knew that feeling, too. But a quickie with a dragon—especially given Rachel didn’t know Cinaed was a dragon—was not a good idea. Not that there was any danger of Rachel falling in love, the way Arabella had; Rachel left men before the afterglow had even worn off. All by design. She kicked them to the curb before they could do it to her… which was why she had stalkers in the first place. That and some men were assholes. Rachel wasn’t any good at picking the good ones, so she had given up trying a long time ago.
Cinaed frowned and lifted Rachel’s chin with one finger to peer at her throat. Even Arabella could see the angry red choke marks that were already on their way to becoming bruises. “That demon spawn hurt you,” he growled, soft, angry, and low. “You should have let me end his miserable life.”
Rachel was practically melting under his touch. She lifted her chin even further, offering her neck to him. “Maybe you should kiss it and make it better.”
Cinaed smirked and leaned forward.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Rachel!”
“Busy here, Ari,” she said, not flinching.
But Cinaed froze and flicked a look at Arabella. She nailed him with a glare. She’d already told him once to keep away from Rachel. He dropped his hand from Rachel’s chin and stepped back.
“If Cinaed had killed your asshole boyfriend—” Arabella started.
“This trash was your boyfriend?” Cinaed asked Rachel, the glower coming back to his face.
“Ex -boyfriend,” Rachel said hastily. “Very much ex.” She threw a glare in Arabella’s direction.
“Your ex- boyfriend is an ass,” Arabella replied. Then, to Cinaed, “But if you killed him, how would we explain that to the police?”
Cinaed sighed but didn’t argue.
“And when you said demon spawn…” Arabella gave him a pointed look. Did he mean literally demon? Because if Rachel’s ex-boyfriends were becoming possessed or whatever Lucian had been talking about with demons in the city…
“A figure of speech,” he said, with a glance for Rachel’s sharp-eyed stare. “Regardless, I do not trust him not to return.” Cinaed scowled at the broken door. “Nor do I approve of the general security of your office.”
Well, it was hard to argue with that. In fact… “Rachel.” She took her friend by the shoulders and turned her away from drooling over Cinaed. “I don’t want you coming into the office anymore. Not until…” She glanced at Cinaed. He shook his head. “Not until we have some better security measures.”
“Yeah, well, that’s going to make meeting with clients a tad more difficult.”
Arabella flicked a glance to Cinaed again, but she didn’t need his confirmation. She knew the House of Smoke had whatever tech wizardry she would need to set up a remote office. And she needed to know Rachel was safe while she figured out this whole thing with Lucian. In fact, having her best friend at the keep might prevent Arabella from going crazy in the meantime.
“I want you to come to the safehouse with me,” Arabella said to her.
“What? Why?” Her brow scrunched up.
“There are a few things I haven’t told you, Rach,” she started.
“I guessed that much.” She threw a slanty-eyed look at Cinaed.
“I’ve got a bit of a situation, and I need your help.” Arabella pleaded with her eyes. “It’ll only be for a short while, and we can work on the practice together up there. You’ll have everything you need, and I won’t have to worry about you being safe while you’re here, and I’m not.”
Rachel frowned at the sudden seriousness of her tone.
“I agree,” Cinaed said with a short nod. “It’s safer to have you both at the keep.”
“The keep?” Rachel asked.
“He means the safehouse.” Arabella frowned. “We can tell you about it on the way.”
“Wait, McHottie is part of this deal?” Rachel asked with a growing grin. “Why didn’t you just say so? Let’s go!” She marched toward the door.
Oh man. Arabella was already regretting this. How was she going to keep the two of them out of each other’s pants?
Cinaed dropped his voice and leaned close. “What will you tell her about… well, the nature of those at the keep?”
“She already thinks you guys are shifters,” Arabella said, matching his whisper voice. “Trust me, she won’t care what kind. And besides, that was just one of Lucian’s lies, right? The whole swearing me to secrecy thing?”
“It is not a well-known fact,” Cinaed said, pointedly. “Do you wish your friend to have to endure a forgetting spell?”
Arabella frowned. “You said this was a good idea.”
“I said she would be safer at the keep,” he said, exasperated. “The rest she needn’t know.”
“Hey, nice ride!” Rachel said from the door, eyeing Lucian’s luxury car outside. “Are you two coming, or what?”
Arabella jabbed a finger in Cinaed’s face and whispered, “Remember what I said—no bedding my best friend then telling her that she’s not mate material!”
He winced then looked to Rachel. “Wouldn’t think of it, my lady.” But she could tell by the look on his face that he was very much thinking about it.
Arabella would just have to keep an eye on the two of them. She would have her hands full figuring out how to repair Lucian’s broken heart—she didn’t need to deal with Rachel getting her heart broken as well.
She strode toward her friend waiting by the door.