Danburn: The English Dragon ― Erotic Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance (4 page)

“Yeah, I can send you copies of the entire file if you want.” He said that he did and thanked him. “I remember her. The little girl. Poor thing. They didn’t think she’d live through the night, much less longer. Her momma had put the bullets in her head, then ran off instead of paying up for what she’d done to her daughter. The only reason we even knew what had happened was the boyfriend was pissy about the girl leaving a mess to clean up and her momma running off. Cold as a fish, if you ask me.”

“Why did she do it? Do you know for sure?” Joe told him what he’d read in the police report he’d found just today. That she’d needed a place to sleep, and her then boyfriend had told her to kill the girls and she could stay. “And so she shot her daughter and figured that no one would care? What sort of mother does that to her own daughter?”

“She said she was supposed to kill the other one too, but thought it might be too hard on her not to have her baby girl with her. But times, she told them when Kendrick was dying and they went there to arrest her for it, were hard.” Noah asked if he knew why she’d not been arrested at the time of the shooting. “She got away. When they were carting up the little girl to take her away, she just slipped out the back door and they didn’t have any way of tracking her. Not like they do now. She kept off the grid, like she was one of them agents that go deep undercover.”

It appeared that Joe was right. It wasn’t until her body had shown up at a hospital five years ago, riddled with cancer and well beyond any help, that anyone knew that the woman living for the most part under a bridge, was wanted for attempted murder. She’d even confessed, sort of, to having shot Kendrick, but said that Kendrick shouldn’t have left her out there all alone. She’d said to the police it was Kendrick’s duty as her daughter to care for her, not leave her to rot like she did. Noah thought he might have done the same under the circumstances.

Now he had not just the medical records of Kendrick, but also glossy pictures of the injuries to her little body as well. Back then there were real photographs, not digital. He picked up the one of her laying on the gurney with tubes in her mouth and blood all over the pillowcase under her. It didn’t even have to be in color for Noah to know that it was blood.

“What did you find that has you so upset?”

He looked at Mary when she sat down across from him. They were friends, good friends, and he knew that telling her anything would go no further than if he’d told the chair she was sitting in. But he didn’t want to tell her about the girl in the hospital. Not about her life until now, nor the things she’d done to keep her sister safe. But Noah also knew that if he didn’t tell her, he’d not be able to get the weight of it off his chest.

So, Noah told her everything he’d been able to find out, speculated on the things that he wasn’t sure of, and even showed her the pictures that he knew would haunt him for decades to come. When he had exhausted all his knowledge to her about Kendrick, she sat there with a tear-stained face and a look of pure horror in her eyes.

“The master, he know all this yet?” Noah told her that he did not, not yet at any rate. “You must tell him. Today, before she gets it in her head to run again. Because you know as well as I do that she’s gonna. A past like this, she can’t be too trusting of people with the things that have happened to her, do you think?”

“Why do you think that?” She looked down at the picture she still held in her hand, and he wondered what she was thinking. “Mary, she’s too hurt to run very far. Why do you think I need to do this now? Today?”

“No one has been good to her for her whole life. Mr. English, he’s a good man, but stern and a little bossy. She’s got herself a temper that can match his, don’t you think?” He nodded, not sure where she was going with this. “You think they can get together? The two of them. Fire on fire?”

“You mean as a couple?” She nodded. “Oh, I don’t think that would work. She’s…well, you know as well as I do that he’s royalty and not prone to taking on causes that involve anyone like her. And that would be what it was for him, a cause. He’d want to fix her up and make her better off. Not that I think she’d let him, but you can’t expect him to want to be with someone like her. It’s not the way he does things.”

“You’re saying that he’s a snob.” It wasn’t a question, but he answered her yes anyway. “Good. Might be that she’ll take exception to that too. Never seen a man so bent out of shape over a woman before, have you? I mean, he goes by the hospital to talk to her daily. Then he comes here and complains about her like he has this problem with her. I think he’s sweet on her and just doesn’t know it yet.”

Mary got up to work on dinner. Noah wasn’t sure what to think about her declaration. His lordship and a person who flipped burgers? Never would anything work between them. Yes, he did complain about her stubbornness a great deal. And it had been hard on Noah to not say that he thought them a great deal alike. But as a couple? No, that would not do. Not at all.

He gathered up his information and put it into neat piles to give to Danburn when he returned home. Noah would catch himself thinking about the two of them together and the volatile way they seemed to be when in the same room. Whatever would they do if they were to have sex?

“Not even going to think about that.” He looked up when Lady English asked him what he wasn’t going to think about. “Nothing important, my lady. Just mulling over something that Mary said. About his lordship.”

“If it’s about him and Kendrick getting together, it’s something I’ve been thinking about all day. Can you imagine the two of them wed?” Her suggestion shocked him so badly that he nearly told her to shut up. “And their children? Oh my, Noah, we’d have our work cut out for us if they had children like them.”

“My lady, she’s not even in the same class as him. I mean, she can’t even pay her own bills. And Danburn? He’s…he’s beyond wealthy.” She looked at him with a cocked brow. “I’m sorry, my lady, I just never expected you to condone such a union. They’re nothing at all alike when it comes to their class.”

“No. And I do believe that is what would make them a wonderful couple.” She crossed her arms over her chest as she looked at him. Noah had a sudden thought that Danburn was more like her than he’d ever been his father. “You, my kind sir, are a snob.”

“I am. And I am proud of it. But the two of them? I don’t think that would work at all, do you?” She told him that he’d said that, and she did believe they could. “Well, I believe it bears saying again. The two of them would not suit. Perhaps, as Mary said, they would come together sexually in a way that would be epic, but not as man and wife. She wouldn’t even know how to act at a dinner party. I think that she would bring an embarrassment down on his head that would be talked about for centuries.”

He thought he’d made his point and finished putting his work together. When he laid it all out on Danburn’s desk so that he could see it first thing, he decided that enough time had been wasted on the subject. But he could not get that nagging thought out of his head. The two of them as man and wife?

“Here.” He looked at his ladyship when she shoved a picture at him. He took it but didn’t have a chance to look at it before she started speaking again. “He was nothing more than a man who sold hot cinders to the rich. Most often they would kick him in the head and not pay him for what he did for them. There were no matches, no electric to get a house warm. Nothing but a fireplace and a man who sold cinders as a living. He was less than that young woman is now when I met him. Yet he never once embarrassed me like you have shamed me just this moment.”

“My lady, I never meant to—”

She cut him off. “You never meant to say my husband wasn’t good enough for me? You didn’t mean to belittle the fact that she works hard every day, sometimes not even getting to lay her head on her own pillow because she works so many jobs? You didn’t mean to classify her as nothing, not even worthy of carrying a hot coal into the house that I live in?” He knew she was mad and again tried to tell her he was sorry. “Danburn should be so lucky for her to fall in love with him. I have never seen a woman, in all my life mind you, that has made me so proud and ashamed of myself at the same time. If I worked half as hard as her, I could accomplish many things.”

She was leaving the room when he looked at the picture in his hands. It was one that he’d seen many times over the centuries, one that he’d painted himself. It was a hand-painted picture of the lady and her late husband, looking at each other, so much in love that one could almost feel it coming from them. Running his finger over the dried paint, he thought of how the master of the house would have reacted to such news as his only son marrying a commoner.
He would have thought it was the best thing in the world
, Noah thought. He could almost hear him now.

“Why, can you think of the stock they would bring to the table? Strong bloodlines are hard to come by.” He thought of the words that the then master of the family used to say. Noah thought it a perfect description of the young woman.
Every so often, someone comes along that has the heart and will of a dragon. When you find them, protect them with your life. Because you never know when greatness will come for you again
. He wondered if she was that greatness.

At a little past eight Danburn came home. He was in a foul mood, so Noah stayed in the kitchen with Mary. When he thought he heard him at the stairs, he made his way to the office to see if he’d left him any work. But he was sitting at his desk with the file in his hand, staring out the window. He didn’t even turn when Noah said his name.

“I find myself wanting to be with her. Even with her temper driving me insane, I want to aggravate her into a frenzy just to see her cheeks get all pink and her eyes burn with it.” Noah said nothing, but did look at the picture that was still sitting on the corner of his desk. “Tonight she told me to get out and to never return. I stayed just to see if she’d let me kiss her. Kiss her. Like she wouldn’t try and tear my throat out if I got too close.”

“Perhaps you should try charming her.” Danburn turned and looked at him. “She has not had many people try to be nice to her. It might put her off, but then again, she might enjoy a little pampering from the right man.”

“I’ve been thinking of my father a lot today. And her. He would have loved her, you know that, don’t you? Mother already does.” Noah nodded and sat in the chair. “They’re releasing her tomorrow and I’m going to bring her here. Her sister is going to be a bit longer, but Kendrick is coming here so I can keep an eye on her.”

“She won’t like that.” Danburn nodded. “Where shall I put her? On the upper floors or on the family floor close to you?”

Danburn said nothing for several minutes. Noah had a feeling that he was trying to figure out if he wanted her that close to him or not. Noah, like the rest of the household, was beginning to think that they might be good for each other. He wasn’t sold on marriage, but he could see how they’d be good together on other levels.

“Put her in the room across from mine. That way if she tries to run, I can hear her.” Noah nodded. “And she’ll need things too. I haven’t any idea what that might entail, but could you get with my mom and see if she’ll give you a list of items a woman might need to have while recuperating?”

“Yes, sir.” Noah wanted to ask him if he was ready for this, to have a stranger living here full time, but he didn’t. He was pretty sure that Danburn wouldn’t have an answer any more than he did. “What of Ms. James?”

“We’re to take care of her in the morning. Everything is set up for it to happen.” Danburn leaned back and looked older all of a sudden. “Do you think I’m going to live to regret this, Noah?”

“No. I have no idea why, but I’m beginning to think this might be the best thing for all of us.” Danburn nodded and smiled at him. “What shall I tell the staff regarding her? I mean, there will be questions.”

“I’m sure there will be. I have a few of my own. But I have no idea. She’s…nothing to me at the moment. Can we just leave it at that?” Noah nodded and thought about the closing of the house in a few days.

“Sir, the household. We’re to leave in three days. Do we stay or…? There is also the matter of your apartment and the things that were to be taken from here to there. I don’t think there is a second room there for the young miss.”

“No, there’s not. And for now…for now we’re going to put off the closing of the house.” Noah nodded, feeling relieved about the decision. “Find someone to help Kendrick. I don’t mean a maid or whatever they’re called now, but someone just to help her out.”

Noah wasn’t sure that was going to work out well either, but said he’d do it. As he was leaving the office, thinking of all the things he had to do tomorrow, he made his way to the kitchen to talk to Mary. She was going to gloat. There was no help for it, but in this he was pretty sure that she had hit the nail on the head.

Chapter
4

Kendrick wasn’t sure she wanted to be here, but as the doctor explained, there was no help for it. The shelter was out of the question, not just because he said so but because she wasn’t going to go there again. And she needed a place to recuperate. The master of the house had asked, not ordered, her to come here. Looking around the room, she wondered what the hell kind of money it took to buy and keep a castle running. The knock at the door had her covering her legs up and telling the person to enter.

“Miss. You may remember that my name is Noah, and I work for Mr. English, Danburn. I’ll be helping you with a few things for today to get you settled. Starting tomorrow I have hired a nurse to come in and care for you, but after that, we’ll have to figure out who can take over my duties for you.” She nodded, not sure what he was talking about. “There is also the matter of the milliner. She would like to come in on Thursday to see about—”

“The milliner?” He told her what it meant. “I know what a milliner is, Noah. What I meant was, why do I need a person to come in and make me clothing? I have some that are perfectly fine at my…I had some at the apartment. I have no idea what happened to them. But as I’m not going to be here that long, I don’t need someone to make me anything.”

“I’m afraid that the local store will not carry the sort of dress you will need should there be a gathering.” She had to ask him what that meant too. “A dinner party. Danburn has them on occasion, and you might be required to host one for him.”

“Host a party for him. I see. Well, not really, but I’m beginning to get an idea. You think I’m going to be here for the master. His plaything, as it were.” She almost felt sorry for Noah but moved on, wanting to clear the air before things got out of hand. “I’ve no intentions of fucking the master of the house, no matter how much he pays for me to stay here. I will be perfectly fine living in my car. I have no idea where it is right now, but I could easily have lived there for a long time without having to put out for a man like him.”

“I’m not…I didn’t mean to imply that you would. It was my understanding that....” He looked so helpless that she thought the man was going to blow a gasket. “Miss, I swear to you, I never meant for you to think you had to pay for staying here by sleeping with the master.”

“Good. So long as we’re on the same page on that.” He nodded and sat down on the pretty blue wingback by the fireplace. “Why am I in this room? I mean, there has to be a smaller, less done up room than this one that I could be staying in. I’m not a guest, and I certainly don’t need all this room.”

“I was told to put you here.” Kendrick asked him by who. “The master of the house. He wanted you close in the event that you tried to run.”

She knew that he’d said too much the moment he slapped his hand over his mouth. But she wanted answers, and if she had to make him tell her the truth, then she was all right with that too. Kendrick was pissed off. More than that, she wanted to hunt down Danburn right now and demand that he put her in one of the less…well, pretty rooms. She was going to get to the bottom of this right now.

“Where is he?” Noah said he was in his office. “Is that somewhere here in this house, or has he gone to his office in the city?”

“Here, my lady. He is here. He is taking an at home day today to make sure that you have settled in well.” He looked poleaxed. “I find that I cannot lie to you.”

“Yes, I know.” As she tossed back the covers again, she reached for the oversized shirt she’d managed to get someone to bring her from her home when she’d been in the hospital. Kendrick wasn’t sure what had happened to the rest of her things. There really wasn’t that much, but she knew that someone had picked it up and taken it out of the apartment. Going to the door, she nearly fell back when it was jerked open and the man himself was standing there.

“You are not going to be my lover, and I will not be fucking you so long as I can move away from you. Do you hear me?” He looked at her with a shocked look, and she felt her face heat up. “What I meant to say was, I’m not going to be letting you sleep with me so that I can have a nice place to sleep. In fact, I want you to find me a smaller room, one that is more suitable for someone like me.”

“And what sort of person are you? I mean, I want to get this right the first time with you. I have a feeling that you won’t let me live it down if I don’t.” She watched as Noah slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Coward. “Did you have perhaps a hovel in mind? I assure you that I have no rooms on the estate like that.”

“Don’t you have a maid’s room or something I can use until I’m ready to get set free?” He took a step closer to her and she backed away. “Maybe I can stay in like, a pool house or something.”

“The pool house is currently occupied by the pool equipment. And I don’t have a maid, I have a butler.” Two more steps back to his two toward her. “I do have another room in mind, but I don’t think you’re going to like it any better than you do this one.”

“Your room.” He nodded, and she felt the bed railing touch the back of her legs. “You’re not going to sleep with me.”

“No, I’m not.” She felt the air swoosh out of her. “When we come together, there will be very little sleep for either of us, I think. Or at least I hope so.”

“You can’t want to sleep with me.” He shook his head, but the smile on his face made her think he was still on the little sleep comment. “I’m not having sex with you. I don’t like you.”

“Yes, you’ve told me. I, however, find you to be very appealing. I have thought of little else but the need to see if your body is as pretty as I think it is.” Kendrick looked for a way to escape, but he cut even that off by putting his hands on either side of her, using the footboard. “You have a very sexy mouth. I bet it tastes good too.”

“You can’t be serious.” He was apparently, and lowered his head to hers. “I’m not going to allow you to kiss me. I don’t like you.”

“So you keep saying.” But the moment his mouth brushed over hers, it was all Kendrick could do not to grab his arms and pull him closer. “Let me kiss you, Kendrick. Let me taste the darkness of your mouth.”

The matter was taken out of her hand when he curled his hand at the back of her head and slowly pulled her to him. Licking her lips, wanting to feel his lips upon hers, she watched him as he moved to her. Even his eyes, a dark purple in color, seemed to say something to her.

“This is a terrible idea.” If he answered, she had no clue, because then his mouth was taking hers. And take it he did.

She knew he was being careful of her lips. They were still sore, but not nearly as swollen. Her eye, too, was much better and she could see out of it, but it, too, was painful sometimes. But he ran his hand down her back, touching her spine all the way to her ass, and she moaned loudly against his mouth when he cupped her and pulled her to him. Every thought she’d ever had of turning this man down flew right out the window.

Her feet no longer touched the floor. Her breasts were pressed hard against his chest, and she knew that he could feel her nipples as they hardened. She could feel his too, and moved her hand to the one at her left and pinched it gently in her fingers. He jerked his mouth from hers and looked down at her.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” She nodded, then shook her head. “Yes, that about covers it for me too.”

When he put her down and took a step back from her, removing not only his hands from her but his heat as well, Kendrick felt cold, bereft, and out of sorts. When he took another step or two back, she held onto the footboard again and tried to sum up some anger. But there wasn’t any anger. Confusion yes, a little hurt too. But no anger.

“Don’t do that again.” He shook his head at her. “I mean it. Don’t you dare kiss me again. I told you, I’m not going to be your sexual plaything while I’m here. It’s not what I want from you.”

“I don’t want that either. You as my sexual plaything, I mean. But if I took you in my arms right now, would you let me lay you out on that bed and eat you?” Her body heated up; her pussy gushed. “I can smell you, Kendrick. You might say one thing, but your body says something entirely different.”

“I know my head, and it is saying for you to keep your distance. I don’t want you any more than you want me. I’m just here. And that’s all there is to it.” Danburn closed the distance between them in two steps. Her body was wrapped around his, her ankles locked at his hips. He pressed her against the wall, having moved across the room to do so. She cried out when he rocked into her heated flesh, her pussy on fire for him.

“Come for me. Come now.” She tried to think of anything but doing what he wanted. But the harder he rocked into her, the more she needed to let go. The entire time he watched her, his eyes locked on hers. “Come, Kendrick. Come apart now.”

Her body did just that. It seemed to not just come apart for him, but did so several times in a row until she was weak with it. But he wasn’t finished with her. As he continued to rock into her, bringing her body close to the edge again, he told her all the things he was going to do to her, and how much she was going to enjoy them. When he was finished with her, and there wasn’t any doubt to her that it was his decision, not hers, he stopped moving against her and took a step back.

“That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have allowed it to go that far.” She felt her heart tear; her blood simply stopped flowing to the wound in her chest that had once been her beating heart. “We barely know each other, and here we are having sex like animals against the wall, for Christ’s sake.”

This time when he set her on the floor, she staggered slightly and he reached for her. Kendrick slapped his hands away from her. And when he tried again, she slapped him on the face. Her anger burned through her like her blood had only moments ago when she’d come for him.

“Did you enjoy that? Do you feel like the powerful king of the castle now that you’ve made the poor girl feel like a woman?” He opened his mouth and she snapped at him. “Yes, so I came, thank you for that. How lovely of you to make me feel like a whore in your home. Will there be any other services that I can provide for you, Master English? Perhaps I can drop down and suck you off while you lord your superiority over me.”

“I wasn’t...I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Kendrick made her way back to the bed, her heart broken into pieces. “I’m sorry. I only meant to kiss you and leave.”

“You had your kiss. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone.”

He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t look in his direction. Her mind was on a loop right now, and his words, that it had been a mistake, didn’t make her feel any better about what had happened and how she felt right now.

~~~

Danburn stood outside her room for twenty minutes, trying to figure out what he could do now. He’d hurt her. He knew that as surely as he was standing there. But how to fix it was something that was beyond him. Then as he stood there, thinking that he should go in and talk to her, he heard the sobs from the other side of the door and he leaned against it. Now he’d made her cry. His mother’s voice from down the hall had him going to her like she was a lifeline.

“I made her cry. How do I stop it? I only wanted a little kiss. Well, that’s not true. I wanted her. I guess that’s too much to tell my mother, but I made her cry and I don’t know what to do about it. Help me.” She looked at him like...well, like she didn’t have any idea who he was. “Kendrick. I made her cry by kissing her. Well, not the kissing part. I think she enjoyed that, but now she’s crying and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“What did you say to her?” He told her everything, even the part where he’d nearly taken her against the wall. “So you manhandled her, then told her that you’d messed up and called her an animal.”

“It sounds much worse when you say it like that.” His mom just stared at him. “Okay, it is much worse now that I say it aloud. I only meant that.... Christ, I have no idea what I meant. Only that I wanted her later and not while she was hurting like she is.”

“That would have been a better way to tell her than you think she’s an animal.” He didn’t think he’d called her that, but his mother was helping right now and he didn’t want her upset too. “Do you have any idea how to grovel? Or to be romantic? I’ve never seen you do it, but I think you might have picked up a thing or two from your dad. Maybe.”

“I can grovel. You make me.... I mean, I do it when I need to, when I’ve messed up with you. And I am romantic. Women love me.” She looked at him, cockeyed. “Mother, I’m a drowning man here. I want her to not cry. It makes me feel…like I’ve gotten hurt myself.”

“Yes, I’m sure it does.” Danburn wasn’t sure what she meant, but before he could ask, she continued. “Grovel. Buy her flowers. No, not flowers, but plants. I think she’d be the one person in the world who would want a rose bush rather than a dozen roses. But then she’d not know where to plant them. I’ll have to think on that. But you can be kind to her. No more ordering her about like she’s the animal you called her.”

“I didn’t call her an animal.” His mother cocked her impressive brow at him. “Well, I didn’t. I said simply that I wasn’t going to take her like one. There is a marked difference in that.”

“Not to her.” Okay, he could see her point in that. But he still had no idea how to make her not hate him. And for a reason that he couldn’t, or maybe didn’t want to, explain to himself, he didn’t want her to hate him. “Go to work for now. I’ll make sure that she’s cared for today. You must, however, think of every little thing you can do to make this work with her, Danburn. I like this girl a great deal, and I don’t want you to mess it up.”