Chapter 6
Chapter Six
FIONA
I can’t remember the last time I screamed like this. Maybe the night Marion and I snuck out to the local carnival at thirteen and walked through the Haunted Funhouse, but even that pales in comparison. I scream and scream and scream until my lungs burn.
The creature who abducted me has to be six foot five and is built like a Nordic god. Maybe he is a god. All I know is he looks unsettlingly like my character Henrik Angel and was invisible at the wedding. Is he an alien? An angel?
It would be impossible to mistake the creature for human despite his straight nose and pillowy lips or the scar that breaks through his right eyebrow. My abductor has wings. Great, taloned, deadly, working wings that flew us here, wherever here is. His wings though aren’t the feathery sort. More like a demon’s wings. And we are definitely not still in the south of France. I prayed to God to send me a sign if I was doing the wrong thing marrying Roman. Is it possible that this angel or demon is the answer to my prayers?
Whatever he is, he’s stunning. Breathtaking. Inhumanly beautiful. Shit, with his dark blond hair sweeping his shoulders and ocean-blue eyes, he looks like he walked right off a Viking war ship. And his body is a masterpiece of long, lean muscle. Golden-skinned, chiseled male perfection. All my deepest instincts urge me to press my lips to the mouth that is so close to mine. Only my logical mind keeps me from acting on that impulse.
He’s not human.
He abducted me.
He looks like my character but has wings like a demon.
And so I keep on screaming.
“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you,” he says firmly. His bright, direct eye contact steals my breath.
My scream cuts off, and I struggle to drag air into my lungs. Did I just feel his words inside my head? He said them. I heard them. But I also felt them like a soft rustle of leaves blowing through my skull. My eyes widen even further. By now they must be large enough to influence the tides.
“Take a deep breath. I’ll explain everything,” he says. The salt air, cucumber, and mint scent I’d smelled before wafts into me again. I inhale deeply, realizing it’s his cologne I smelled at the wedding. The scent seems to travel straight to my core and sends another confusing flush of heat down low in me. My nostrils flare, trying to get a better whiff. I have the insane desire to bury my face in his chest.
Fuck! Angel, demon, or alien, his presence is intense.
I stumble backward, my nervous system still fighting the insane reality around me. He catches me when I start to fall, lifting me easily. My feet bicycle in the air like something out of a Flintstones cartoon.
“Relax, Fiona. I promise you, everything will be fine if you just listen to me.” His words blow through my mind again, soothing but not soft. Directive. Dominant. That deep, primal urge within me wants me to obey.
I stop running. Slowly he sets me down. “Wh-what the fuck are you?” Tears flow from the corners of my eyes. I’ve never been the type of woman to cry easily, but I’m terrified.
He releases my shoulders and raises one enormous hand to my face. Fuck, he’s big. I recoil, afraid, but he only wipes away my tears with his thumb.
“Are you an angel?” My gaze traces over his wings.
He gives a low chuckle. “No.”
I raise my hands between us. “Demon?”
“No!” He takes my hands between his own. “I’m a dragon.”
“A dragon?” I wasn’t expecting that, and the answer leaves me completely confused.
“Whatever Roman’s told you about us, it’s not true.” His voice is low, deep, and commanding.
I study him for a moment and then remember Roman shooting at us with some sort of blue weapon. I have no idea what this winged man means by being a dragon, but I’m beginning to think he’s far more worldly than any angel or demon. My eyes narrow.
“You… you abducted me!”
He holds up his hands. “Easy. Let’s just talk about this.”
“You kidnapped me on my wedding day.”
His blue eyes narrow and his jaw hardens, lips forming a cocky grin. “You didn’t want to marry that guy.”
I scoff and shake my head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He frowns slightly as if considering something. “You were staring at me, begging me with your eyes to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
For a moment I’m stunned silent. No way am I going to admit to this dragon that I was second-guessing my marriage. “Begging you? I never said a word to you.”
His smile is back. Slow. Wolfish. “But you admit you were thinking it.”
Something clicks inside me, like my body has thrown a switch from fear to anger. Fire pumps through my veins as if I’m a stick of dynamite whose wick has burned down to nothing. “Motherfucking, arrogant freak! You cannot be suggesting I am somehow to blame for my own abduction!” I poke a finger into his chest, my face feeling flushed as fury courses through me, overpowering any remaining fear or instinct for self-preservation. “I don’t care what you thought you saw in my eyes. You’re wrong . Take me back. Take me back now . ”
He narrows his eyes and pulls me closer, his delicious warmth surrounding me. “Sorry, sweetheart, you’re mine .”
“Yours?” I huff, struggling against him. I break free of his hold and stand on my own, facing him, the cold slamming into me once more. I don’t care how warm he is or how beautiful. This is bullshit. “I most certainly am not yours!”
Something in his face changes, almost like I’ve slapped him, and all the warmth and humor drains from his eyes. “You are until I get what I want,” he says through his teeth.
“What do you want?” I bellow. The wind picks up and I shiver, folding my arms over the useless lace dress.
“The Order to answer for the murder of Lucy Vale.”
I draw back, more confused than ever. “The Order? Who the hell is the Order?”
“Like you don’t know.”
I stare at him blankly. “Lucy Vale? That’s the woman who was murdered in Paris. The one with the Latin inscription over her head, written in her blood.”
“That’s right. You didn’t think we’d let the Order get away with murdering one of our kind without answering for it, did you?”
I swallow. “Your kind? Like… dragons .” I play back the conversation in my head. Nothing makes sense. Why does this man think Roman wants to kill him or his family? I shake my head. “Roman isn’t part of any Order. And he certainly isn’t a murderer.”
The wind blows again, tiny flakes of snow swirling down from above in its gusts. Where the hell are we? I hug myself harder against the cold, against the realization that my life just got turned on its head.
“Come inside. You need to get warm.” He grabs my upper arm and turns us toward a house I would have called luxurious in any other context. All rich wood and stone with a wraparound porch and a pair of rockers out front. It looks like it belongs in a vacation catalog for Montana or Wyoming.
“Where are we? How did you…? How did we get here so fast…? You didn’t just fly me here did you?” I shiver hard but somehow feel hot. My joints ache. My head throbs.
He frowns, then speaks slowly, as if he’s talking to a preschooler. “I’m a dragon. I’m the thing your fiancé is trying to kill. And I find it hard to believe that the woman marrying the son of the grandmaster of the Order doesn’t know anything about it or us.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I scratch at the lace of my dress, suddenly feeling like the itch has turned to pain. “I told you, I don’t know anything about any order. But I do remember Roman shot at you today, and no wonder! You’re a fucking monster.”
That seems to piss him off. A growl rumbles through his chest. “I’m not a monster. I’m your ... mate.”
“What?” I can’t really hear him over the wind, but it almost sounded like he said mate. Mate ? What does he mean by mate? Is it like in the Australian sense? Like he thinks I’m his friend? My head swims and I hold it between my palms, suddenly nauseated. “What do you really want? Is it money? I’m sure he’ll pay.” My voice shakes. My head throbs. I feel clammy despite the cold, and my skin is on fire. I know this feeling. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“I don’t want money,” he mumbles, his brow creasing.
God, his eyes are boring into me. It’s like he can see into my soul. My cheeks heat. Maybe he can. Fuck, I can’t believe this is happening. My heart pounds against my folded arms. I’m trembling, and the telltale tingling in my fingers and toes tells me that my intuition is right. The stress has triggered a full fibro flare. This is bad. Very, very bad. I need to lie down. I sway on my feet.
“Hey, are you okay?” His hands are on me again, and I’m not strong enough to push them away. “You don’t look so good.” Cucumber and mint. It’s incredibly soothing. He’s warm, and suddenly I’m so, so tired.
“How the hell do you think I am?” My eyes roll back and I slump in his arms.
“Whoa!” He catches me before I hit the ground. Before I can protest, I’m in his arms again and he’s walking me toward the house. My cheek rests against his biceps, although I can’t be sure if it’s flesh under his Henley or steel. The man is a wall. A very big, very hard wall. I close my eyes against a wave of dizziness.
“What’s going on, Fiona?”
“How do you know my name?” My voice sounds small. I’m so tired.
“A story about your engagement.”
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours. What to call you,” I babble. The world around me starts to spin, and I close my eyes. It feels like I’m drunk.
He repositions me to unlock and shoulder open the door. All I register about the inside of the house is that it smells clean and the dark eases my pounding head. He carries me into a bedroom and lays me down like I’m made of glass. The bodice of my gown digs into my back and I inhale sharply against the pain.
“My name is Connor. Tell me what’s happening.”
“Need to rest,” I mumble. “Hurts.”
“What hurts?”
“Everything.” I close my eyes and hold absolutely still.
“You can’t sleep in that.” I hear him opening drawers.
In the back of my mind, I have a fleeting instinct to run. Fight. Do something to try to save myself from Connor, whoever he really is. He’s distracted. I might get away, find help. But I can’t keep my eyes open. Every joint in my body aches to the point I’m afraid to move, and a slash of pain down my back feels like an open sore. I know it’s just my nerves. My body is attacking itself. I might as well have been hit by a truck for the pain and fatigue I’m experiencing. I can’t move. I can’t form words. I can’t keep my eyes open.
“I’m getting you out of that dress.” I feel Connor grab hold of the fabric, and I make the weakest attempt to stop him. “Relax. If I see anything I haven’t seen before, I’ll let you choose from the prize table.”
I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to do. It took two women ten minutes to get me into this monstrosity. The next thing I hear is fabric tearing and the dress is off me in seconds. Holy fucking shit. He tore it off me like it was made of paper!
“That dress was fifty thousand dollars,” I mumble.
“It belongs in fifty thousand pieces,” he mumbles back.
A tiny voice at the back of my head cheers at the thought that even if Roman rescues me, I never have to wear the itchy mountain of lace again. My corset blissfully loosens, and then it’s gone. All at once, I’m bared from the waist up to the monster who abducted me.
There’s a long pause, and I pop open one eye to see him studying my breasts and the deep, puckered scar that cuts from my right collarbone to just left of my navel. It healed a long time ago, but the discolored strip of flesh is still shocking. Not as shocking as learning a seat belt can do that to you in a violent accident, but shocking nonetheless.
Channeling all my disdain for the ugly injury into my gaze, I glare at him and say, “I’ll take the oversized stuffed animal.”
“Huh?” His face goes blank.
“You said if you saw anything you hadn’t seen before, I could pick from the prize table. I’ll take the oversized stuffed animal.”
His lips twitch, and then he laughs in a way that warms my insides as thoroughly as if I were resting near a fire. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says softly. “What happened to you?”
“None of your fucking business.”
He snorts. Sitting me up, he pulls a sweatshirt over my head that’s big enough for me to wear as a dress. I’m lifted and then tucked under a blanket. Then he starts pulling the pins from my hair. I’m relieved when it’s finally free. I hurt everywhere, but at least my skin no longer itches from the lace and my head no longer aches from the torturous bun.
“Sleep, Fiona. I’ll watch over you.”
Watch over me. My kidnapper. I’d laugh if I thought it wouldn’t hurt. Instead, I close my eyes and pray for sleep.