The Dragon of Cecil Court (The Treasure of Paragon Book 5) Read online

  His brow furrowed. “You don’t mean that. You’ve said over and over again how important it is to you.”

  She shook her head. “All I cared about was getting you back. All I felt was regret for not forcing you back into the car once I understood the scheme. What sort of horrible person sacrifices someone she loves for… for a song?” She felt nauseated just thinking about it.

  “Love isn’t enough, remember?” he said cynically. He tried to take a step back, but she moved right along with him.

  “I thought that was true when I said it, but I was wrong.” She frowned. “Love was enough today. Enough to make me realize that I cannot live in a world without you. All these years, somewhere in the back of my mind, I assumed… No, I knew down to my soul that you’d take me back whenever I was ready. It made me confident, this secret I had in my subconscious, that I held the love of a dragon. Oh, I thought you’d take other lovers, sure, but no one, no one would ever touch what we had.”

  “I’m not a toy you can take out of the box when you want to play with it.” He narrowed his eyes on her.

  “I know. I was wrong. I realized today that I can live without my voice, I can live without my magic, I can live without a family.” Her voice cracked. “But I can’t live without you. Please forgive me for taking so long to decide. But if you want me still, I am yours.”

  The look he gave her was nothing short of mystified. It was like she was speaking a different language. For the longest time he just stared at her, face impassive, body tense. Minutes passed and she felt truly naked, exposed in a way she’d never been before.

  She looked away and laughed under her breath. “It is too late, isn’t it? You don’t feel the same way as before.”

  His hand landed on her arm. “No. That’s not it.”

  Her eyes met his. “Then what is it?”

  “You’re still Clarissa. The Clarissa. You have a concert at the O2 in a week.”

  “I know.”

  His eyes grew dark and stormy. “The extreme circumstances of today have heightened your emotions. It’s quite possible you’re in shock. When the sun rises, or the next time Tom calls, I fear you’ll change your mind.”

  She shook her head. “Not about this.”

  “I need you to listen to me. Really listen. If I take you as my mate, if you agree to be mine, I cannot break that bond, not ever. I could hold you at arm’s length before because you did not agree. Once you give yourself to me in this way, I can’t go back. The love we felt before will be a shadow of what will exist in its place.”

  He’d told her that before about the mating bond, that for dragons it was akin to a marriage that could never be dissolved. She wasn’t sure she could fully understand what that meant as a human. Could anyone who wasn’t immortal wrap their mind around it?

  “I think I understand. I mean, as much as I can, not being a dragon.”

  He let her go and paced the room, clearly agitated. When he turned back to her, his eyes were glowing amethyst and it was his dragon that spoke. “If you change your mind, I will come after you. I won’t be able to abide your distance.”

  She crossed her arms. So it had come to this—he’d expect her to live here with him, which meant severely limiting her career. Of course, without her magic, her career would be limited anyway. The chance that she could decipher what Grindylow had said to her and get her magic back seemed distant. Sisters? Dragon queens? It hadn’t been what she was expecting.

  And then there was the emptiness that she felt when she thought about going back to her old life. That was something she couldn’t deny. She’d been lonely before and hadn’t even realized it. But being here, being with Nathaniel, the old spark was back. For him. For life. She might have lost her voice, but she’d found again her reason for wanting to sing.

  She looked straight into the face of the dragon and her throat caught as she said, “Don’t you know, Nathaniel, I’m already yours.”

  Mine.

  Nathaniel could smell it. Her love for him, her wanting, filled his lungs. He took a step toward her, then another. She did not back away although he must have been terrifying with his dragon so near the surface. He could feel it burning in him, its desire to complete the bond so intense he could think of nothing else. Still, some part of his logical mind expected her to run. Expected her to turn him away, the same as she had the night of the ritual.

  She didn’t. And the look she was giving him pushed all the right buttons. It was total surrender. Unlike the night of the ritual, he wasn’t hunting her. She was an active participant in the electrical charge building between them. She met him halfway, slamming into him in the middle of her bedroom.

  He wrapped his arms around her as her mouth crashed into his, returning her kiss with all the intensity that had built inside him for a decade. She melted against him. He teased her bottom lip until she opened for him, then licked and thrust into her mouth until she moaned.

  By the Mountain, she smelled of lilies and sex, her need blooming between her legs and kindling his dragon senses. He was hard in an instant, almost painfully so. He swept her into his arms.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked as he strode from her room.

  “My room. The bed is bigger, and I intend to use every inch of it.”

  He watched an intoxicating pink creep across her cheeks. She was thirty, but inside she was still that fresh-faced young woman who’d won his heart all those years ago. He entered the master bedroom and lowered her to the black silk of his sheets while he shimmied off the sweats he was wearing. She stretched like a cat, her creamy skin a delicious contrast against the dark fabric. She was spilled milk he intended to lap up.

  “God, I missed this bed,” she said, doing a snow angel against the fabric.

  He grabbed her ankles and slid her to him, spreading her legs wide. “I missed you.”

  His lips found her ankle and teased along the bone and along her calf. She writhed. Her fingernails dug into his hair.

  “So impatient,” he murmured against the inside of her knee. He slowed, creeping along her thigh. His mating trill started in his chest, and she moaned as the vibration tickled her skin.

  “That sound. I could listen to that all day.” She arched herself toward his lips, and he flashed her a self-satisfied smile, then trailed closer to her center. She closed her eyes. “Your mouth is… so… hot.”

  “Open your eyes. I want you to watch me, Clarissa.”

  Her eyes popped open, that arresting blue sending a ripple of anticipation through him.

  “Good.” He held her gaze as he spread her ankles wider and licked up her center. Her whole body shivered. “I want to know that you’re here with me. That you want this.”

  “Oh… Nate. I do.” She spread her arms wide and clawed the sheets.

  He started working on her properly, his tongue flicking along her delicate flesh. He could feel the tension building within her, hear her breath coming in pants. He rested one of her ankles between his wing and shoulder and slid his fingers into her slick heat. She came apart under his tongue, her entire body trembling. Her gasp of pleasure filled the room.

  Wings unfurling, he stretched over her, supporting himself on his elbows. A satisfied female sigh brushed his cheek.

  “I want you in me.”

  “Mine.” He raised his hips, positioned himself, and entered her.

  Nathaniel had been with women before Clarissa, and he’d been with her before they were mated. But nothing compared to this. As he slid into her slick heat, the mating bond snapped into place and everything changed. Every cell in his body aligned with hers, and when their eyes met, he could see she felt it too.

  “It’s… oh… it’s like…” She couldn’t finish. Her hips rose to meet his, finding an easy rhythm.

  He leaned back, spread his wings, and lifted her.

  “So deep,” she crooned, bracing herself on his neck.

  She moaned as he thrust inside the deep vee of her legs. On his knees like this, wit
h her suspended in his arms, he had everything he’d ever wanted. Everything made sense. And he realized he would always feel this way. All the pieces fit. He moved with her until she grew tired and let go, flopping onto her back on the mattress and pulling him on top of her.

  “More. Faster,” she said.

  He stretched on top of her, gave her what she needed, pistoning into her until she shattered around him once again. He found his own glorious peak, and everything in the room melted away. All that existed was her. Her moans of pleasure. Her body writhing gently beneath him. The soft mounds of her breasts against his chest. The long thin stretch of her waist.

  When he finally came back down to earth, she had his face between her hands. “I love you, Nathaniel. I love you so damned much.”

  “I love you too, beyond limits.” He rolled onto his back, taking her with him, and reveled in the feel of her weight over him. He stroked her hair down her back. “Now, my mate, tell me everything Grindylow told you. We’re getting your magic back.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Every part of Clarissa’s body felt deliciously exhausted, as if her bones had gone liquid and she was melting into Nathaniel beneath her. But then he looked at her and asked her about Grindylow.

  The truth was, at the moment, she didn’t care if she ever got her magic back. All she wanted to do was enjoy more of this, more of being this dragon’s mate. She could spend days in this bed as the object of his affection. But there was more to her hesitation. What Grindylow had told her about having sisters had rocked her to her core. It couldn’t be true of course. There had to be some explanation. Perhaps she’d used the term sister symbolically.

  “You said in the car that Grindylow blamed the dragon queen and her fairy liege for what happened to you. Am I remembering that right? I was out of it.”

  She rested her chin on his chest. “Yes. Exactly what she said. Do you know who she might be talking about?”

  “Only my mother and her fairy-sorceress sidekick. Her name was Aborella. But that couldn’t be it. My mother is dead.”

  “Did a new queen replace her?”

  “Even if one did, why would she be targeting you? She’s in another world. No one in Paragon has even met you.” He threaded his fingers behind his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was your second question?”

  “I asked how to get my powers back.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Yeah, get this… She said I need to rebind myself to my sisters.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t think you had any sisters.”

  “I don’t. I was told my real parents died in a car crash. I had no biological siblings. The Blacks adopted me, but they died in a freak accident when I was five. After that, I was raised in the American foster care system. None of the other children I ever lived with felt like sisters. It’s total BS.” She’d already shared her personal background with Nathaniel, but it bore repeating after all this time.

  He seemed to turn that over in his mind. “So what was your third question?”

  “I asked how I find these so-called sisters. I thought maybe she was using the term metaphorically and that her answer would help me figure it out.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She told me one was nearby and would come to me. The other, and I quote, ‘must be retrieved from her obsidian tomb before the queen finishes what she started.’”

  He raised his head off the pillow and frowned at her. “Did she actually use the term obsidian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not dark? Not black?”

  “No. Obsidian.”

  “Hmmm.” A muscle in his jaw began to twitch, and she could feel his entire body tense beneath her.

  “Why does that bother you?”

  “The palace where I grew up was called the Obsidian Palace for a reason. It was built into the side of a mountain and was made entirely of the stuff. Floors, walls, ceilings… dungeon. Polished to a shine. We used to call the dungeon the obsidian tomb because if you were sentenced there, it was usually a life sentence. The conditions were bleak and no one could hear you scream.”

  “So… according to Grindylow, someone I am somehow related to is in a dungeon in Paragon?”

  He shrugged. “It fits the picture. If the dragon queen is truly to blame, then it’s possible that this other piece of the puzzle, this symbolic sister, is also Paragonian.” He scoffed and shook his head.

  “I know, ridiculous, right?” She sighed.

  “I was just remembering that our bond would be illegal in Paragon. Relationships between dragons and witches were forbidden.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “There’s a story from where I come from. It’s part of our history. Centuries ago, a witch from the kingdom of Darnuith fell in love with a dragon and tried to overthrow the kingdom of Paragon. The coup was stopped and the witch and dragon were killed, but afterward it was determined that the combination of the two supernatural creatures was too powerful. Witches control the elements, but they are mortal. Dragons have limited powers but an infinite source of magic. Together, it was feared the right union might be unstoppable. And their offspring… the fear was they would be an abomination, a dragon shifter able to compel the natural elements independently. Theoretically, they would never tire. Never run out of power and never die.”

  “Hmm. So what we just did is breaking the law?” She laughed and bobbed her eyebrows. “Criminality has never been so delicious.”

  He gave her a slow, masculine smile. “They’ll have to lock me up to keep me from you.”

  She kissed him softly.

  “It’s a good thing we aren’t in Paragon. Nothing to worry about here.”

  “Good thing.”

  “But there is this bit about your ‘sister’ being near and finding us.” He rubbed his chin.

  “Do you think there’s something to it?”

  His gaze shifted to hers and he ran his finger along the edge of her hair, then tucked it behind her ear. “What if—and hear me out on this—she’s referring to your doppelgänger that Wallace told us about?”

  Clarissa blinked. With all the excitement, she’d forgotten about the look-alike who’d tried to sell Peter the book on dragons. “You think by sister, she meant someone who looks like me?”

  He nodded. “Perhaps the reason this woman is searching for more information about dragon magic is that she knows it was used to neutralize her magic as well. Perhaps she’s a witch.”

  A tingle crawled up Clarissa’s neck. “A magical sisterhood, like a coven. It’s possible. How do we find her and ask her?”

  “I’ll call Peter. He can make up some excuse for the sellers to come back for the book. When they do, we’ll be there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Paragon

  Raven wallowed in a pool of her own sweat. The Obsidian Dungeon was hot as hell, the polished stone offering no solace from the unrelenting heat. In fact, the stone only seemed to act as an oven. She missed her magic. She’d have loved to make it snow. Even the water the guards gave her in a trough in the wall would only stay cool for a matter of minutes. It tasted of sulfur, but she’d drank as much as she could before it became the temperature of hot coffee.

  There was no comfort in her cell. No window. No breeze. And she wasn’t alone. She shared the water trough, a wooden bucket surrounded by a basket weave of metal, with a prisoner in the cell next to hers. If she squinted through the squares of the grid and the break between the bucket and the metal, she could just make out a man in the neighboring cell. Not a man, she thought. Likely a dragon. He’d finished the water she’d left behind, not seeming to mind the temperature.

  She paced in front of the bars of the cell. Gabriel must be beside himself. He’d do anything to get her out of here. All she had to do was wait. If they expected him to act his part, he’d demand she be treated humanely.

  “If you keep pacing, you’ll dehydrate faster. They only bring wa
ter twice a day.” A voice came from the cell beside her. A male voice, smooth and melodious.

  “You’re probably right. It’s just so insufferably hot.”

  “The coolest place is the back corner, near the trough. It’s hotter near the bars.”

  She moved to the back corner and slid down the wall. It was slightly cooler. Still not comfortable, but better. “How long have you been down here?”

  “A few weeks.”

  She sloughed sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Why are you down here?”

  “The same reason you are.”

  She laughed. “You have no idea why I’m here. Why would you think that?”

  “Everyone in the dungeon is here for the same reason. We pissed off the queen. Oh, excuse me, the empress. See, it’s mistakes like that that earned me this cell.”

  “What’s your name?”

  She heard him shift positions on the other side of the wall. “No names. It’s better that way.”

  Raven frowned, although she understood the sentiment. He had no reason to trust her, just as she had no reason to trust him. “Okay.”

  “So what did you do to end up here?”

  “Pissed off the queen, I mean the empress,” she said dryly. Like she was going to offer him more than he was willing to give.

  The man laughed. “Right. Your accent is foreign though. You’re not a Highborn, that’s for sure. You must be an outsider. From one of the other kingdoms?”

  Raven traced a pattern against her palm and had a change of heart. There was one thing she wanted others here to know, because it was clear Eleanor intended to hide it. If that weren’t true, Raven would be with Gabriel now.

  “I’m Gabriel’s wife,” Raven said softly.

  “Gabriel? The heir? He’s been gone for centuries.”

  “He’s back. We’re back.”

  There was a long pause. “I heard a commotion at the other end of the dungeon, but the sound was muffled. I couldn’t make out words.”