The Billionaire Dragon Shifter Meets His Match: BBW Paranormal Romance (Gray's Hollow Dragon Shifters Book 6) (3 page)

Jane squeezed his hand firmly and pressed the other against his back just hard enough to tell him she thought they should go. It was obvious that they wouldn’t be separated, and equally obvious—at least to his human mind—that this William had no designs on Jane. If his dragon roared at the interloper, well, his dragon was always roaring about something. That was why Laurence wore the dragonglass.

He rubbed his wrist with his free hand, feeling the reassuring hard coldness of the black glass against his skin. “All right. Lead the way.”

William nodded agreeably and turned his back, and Laurence got up, drawing Jane with him. He hesitated when they were both standing—it was the first time he’d been able to appreciate the difference in their heights. He wanted to gather her to him all over again, draw her body up against his to kiss her and feel her softness, the lush abundance of her; he saw the fire rise in her eyes and knew that she wanted the same.

He dropped his gaze first, and his eye caught on the glitter of gold and black in the corner behind her. He nodded toward it, and Jane turned half away from him to pick it up without letting go of his hand.

Laurence felt a hunger deeper than lust, his hands aching with the need to be the one to fasten gold around her throat—but that wasn’t his gift to give, and anyway he couldn’t. He couldn’t give what he had to a mate and tie her to himself, knowing that nothing would ever tame the dragon within him.

Jane glanced sideways at him as if she had heard the thought, or simply knew what he wanted. She tucked the medallion into her pocket, setting the matter aside. She must know, at least generally. She was a dragon herself, after all, and—

His mind froze a bit when he tried to imagine what that would mean for the dragon mating ritual he had been told he would someday carry out with his mate. How...?

By the time he’d reminded himself that it didn’t matter, it would never happen, and he certainly didn’t want to find out, he and Jane had followed William down a short corridor and into a larger room, where wide windows revealed that they were in a downtown high rise. The view was out over the darkness of the lake, and even without being able to see much of the sky or the distant horizon, the awareness of being already so high in the air made Laurence long to fly.

That silenced even the constant rage of his dragon; he had always dreaded the day when it didn’t. He had shifted for the first time so much later than Ilie, his next-older brother. He and Ilie had always been close, sharing dragon speech in the nursery before either of them was old enough to talk properly. Even before Laurence was old enough to shift Ilie had been picking him up in his baby-claws and carrying them both from one end of the lawn to the other on stubby wings.

Laurence had longed to be a dragon then. A dragon like Ilie, who was an equally gentle big brother no matter what shape he wore, and always had time for Laurence even when everyone else was busy doting on the twins or Teddy. Gus, their oldest brother, had been marked out from birth as the future head of the family, and future mayor of Gray’s Hollow, which had been ruled by an unbroken string of Gray mayors since its founding two hundred years earlier.

But Laurence hadn’t turned out to be anything like Ilie. He limited himself to visiting Gray’s Hollow, and his favorite brother, no more than twice a year. Twice a year he took the dragonglass off and let himself fly. Only when Ilie and Gus were there; only when he knew he would be kept under control no matter what shape he wore.

He glanced down at his wrists, his hand still holding Jane’s. He felt something like a distant knocking at some locked door, and looked instinctively to Jane. She was frowning a little now, but she only said, “Let’s sit down, all right?”

He nodded, feeling defenseless after that rush of memory. He wanted to be able to be happy with Jane, the way Ilie was with his Becca. But Ilie had been a dragon practically all the time since he was a little child, and still never hurt a soul; it only stood to reason that Ilie could be happy with his mate.

Laurence sat down on a leather loveseat beside Jane, closing both his hands around hers, though he knew he would have to let her go as soon as he could get away.

William was already sitting in an armchair facing them, and when Laurence and Jane were seated he picked up a slim silver laptop from beside his chair and opened it on his knees. He looked suddenly entirely businesslike, and Laurence could feel the moment when his dragon entirely gave up on considering him a rival, which was... strange. He didn’t think he’d ever felt that even with his own brothers, before they were all mated and settled.

Jane’s hand was still in his, and she pressed warmly against his side. There was another little silence—long enough for Laurence to notice that odd distant knocking sensation again—before Jane said, “William. Out loud, please.”

William looked up with a startled, owlish blink, his gaze flicking back and forth from Laurence to Jane, and Laurence realized that he’d been trying to use dragon speech.

Jane must have tried, before. But mate or not, she couldn’t get past that black glass wall he’d long since learned to keep in place.

She couldn’t now, anyway. If she—if they—

Laurence closed his eyes and focused on the wall in his mind, seamless and smooth and cold. When he opened his eyes again, William was watching him and said only, “So, you’re new in town?”

***

Jane waited, unable to help projecting silent encouragement in dragon speech even though it all bounced uselessly back at her.

After a moment, Laurence said, “I travel a lot. I’ve visited Chicago before, but—yes, on this trip I arrived... this morning, I think, if it’s still the same night.”

“You were out for about three hours,” Jane supplied, touching her fingers to the healed wound on Laurence’s left arm. That would be another scar, which it shouldn’t have been. But Laurence had suffered the constant presence of dragonglass, weakening his defenses to it. Even the best healing supplies Jane had had been insufficient to make the wound disappear without a trace.

“This morning, then,” Laurence repeated softly.

“And you traveled here from...?” William prompted.

“I flew in from New York,” Laurence said, a hint of cold smooth finality in his voice. “On United, not under my own power.”

William nodded, entering the subject’s response on his laptop whether it was useful or not. “And originally, you’re from...?”

“Neither here nor there.” Laurence’s voice was sharp enough to abandon any pretense that he was cooperating with this line of questioning.

Jane watched William cycle through possible responses, torn between her own training and a fierce determination to protect Laurence from being manipulated or pressured. If William made a casual remark about how Laurence’s refusal to name where he came from made it obvious that he was protecting someone who still lived there—

William glanced toward her and murmured in dragon speech,
Give me a
little
credit, Curlew. I don’t know which one of you would bite my head off faster, but the city treaties would be a hell of a mess afterward.

Jane frowned a little.
No back channel chatter, Kolodziej. I’m not on your side here.

William cleared his throat and focused on Laurence again, sitting back behind the laptop and giving a wide, disarming smile. “Okay, well, wherever you grew up I’m guessing you missed your dragon-specific Social Studies class, so let’s do a little remedial lesson, huh?”

Laurence’s posture stiffened, but he looked interested as well as wary. “Is that where good little dragon children learn to respect the Georgian Corps?”

William’s smile widened. “I wouldn’t know, man, I was a terror of a dragon child. Jane, you were a good kid, weren’t you?”

“As far as my mom knew,” Jane agreed, although in truth she
had
been mostly a good kid, all earnest and eager to take her place in the Corps once she proved herself. “Dad was harder to fool, actually, but he had a soft spot for me. Mom’s human,” Jane added to Laurence, when he turned his attention to her. She just barely caught his tiny flinch at the words before she added, “Dad’s the dragon. Georges in mixed marriages like that are the reason there are so many Georges like me and William now, descended from dragons and hunters both.”

“Are they...?” Laurence’s gaze searched hers with a strange anxiety, but he didn’t finish the question.

“They retired down to Arizona a few years ago,” Jane offered, watching his eyes. This flinch was harder to miss. “Your parents...?”

“Both gone.” Laurence dropped his gaze, but he flicked a glance up again to say, “My mother was human too.”

Jane tightened her grip on his hands, wanting to gather him close, to assure him that he wouldn’t ever be alone again—

Ahem
.

Jane shot a glare at William, but angled herself slightly toward him, and that was enough to remind Laurence to drag his attention away from Jane.

“As I was saying: I don’t know where good dragon kids learn about the Georgian Corps, but I learned about it at my dad’s knee. He was a George, met my mom in the line of duty, and like Curlew said—voila, the next generation’s full of dragons policing other dragons, which is probably the best idea since taking the wholesale slaughter of dragons out of the charter.”

“So because you are
both
a dragon I don’t know
and
a member of some self-appointed police force, I should trust you more than if you were only one or the other, is that it?”

William gave an unfazed smile, but Jane knew he was seizing on the same scrap of information she’d caught there: Laurence had said
dragon I don’t know
, not just
dragon
, which meant there were dragons he
did
know, living somewhere he refused to disclose. His father was gone, but there were others still living.

Which could mean Laurence was connected to an entire community of dragons totally unknown to the Georgian Corps, and now William was going to be responsible for investigating a suspected enclave situation. That lined up with what Laurence had admitted about having help obtaining the dragonglass he wore—that help could only come from another dragon, or someone knowledgeable enough about dragons to track down dragonglass already made. There wasn’t that much of it just floating around.

“Don’t trust me if you don’t want to,” William agreed airily. “I’m just saying—we’re not the Spanish Inquisition, okay? We’re trying to keep the peace. Curlew only shot you because letting you and Farrell loose on each other without some kind of supervision would have been much worse.”

Laurence raised his eyebrows. “And with supervision...?”

William grimaced, and Jane’s heart sank. “Yeah, about that. He’s demanding his right to challenge you to redress your intrusion on his territory.”

Laurence’s hands curled into fists, leaving Jane’s hand between them. She pressed her fingers to his wrist, but didn’t try to draw his attention otherwise. “I don’t suppose I can avert the duel by issuing an apology.”

William shook his head. “It’d make my job a hell of a lot easier, but no. For now you’re doubly protected—you’re in Georgian custody and we’re inside the City of Chicago, so you’re covered by the treaties that forbid bloodshed. If you’re okay never leaving the city again you can probably dodge him, although he’ll attempt to force you out somehow. And the second you do leave, he’s going to come after you. He’ll follow you anywhere, and he’ll do his level best to find out anything he can about what might tempt you to leave.”

“So you’ll simply ensure that the innocent bystanders are kept out of the way, is that it?” Laurence’s voice was very calm and cold.

“If his challenge weren’t justified, we’d block him,” William said firmly. “But you did trespass. Are you deaf to dragon speech, by any chance? If you have a disability we might—”

Laurence let out a furious little growl—but the sound still came only from his throat. “I
control myself
. And I don’t allow myself to be shouted at by every dragon who comes within a mile.”

William winced, and Jane looked away, trying not to feel freshly hurt by that. Bad enough that he knew they were mates and refused to act on it; now she knew that he wasn’t even letting her speak to him properly.

At the same time, she realized just how horribly alone he had really been all this time, shutting out any contact.

“Okay, well, that’s not going to get you far as a defense,” William said. “Ignorance of the law and all that. You’re welcome to stay here—either here in headquarters, or here in the city—as long as you want, but we’re going to be keeping an eye on you, and I really cannot recommend trying to leave without answering Farrell’s challenge.”

“And if I do?” Laurence said, his voice as flat and unreadable as his mind. “If I kill him, I suppose that’s the end of the matter and the Georgian Corps will simply let me go on my way?”

Jane tightened her grip hard on Laurence’s wrist and didn’t look anywhere near either him or William.
Please, no, you can’t—you can’t be that kind—

She felt Laurence turn toward her, as though that frantic shout had made some impression on the wall that cut him off from her.