The Billionaire Dragon Shifter's Mate: BBW Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance (2 page)

But Gus was still a stranger she’d met in the woods, and Cara knew better than to go home with some guy she’d just met. Didn’t she?

“If you’d rather not, I can get you back to your car—we’d have to walk almost as far to get a decent trail back to the road, though, unless you’re good at rock climbing.”

Cara looked up at him, but the expression on his face was patient and kind. He wasn’t pushing. When she looked at him, she didn’t feel like she had anything to fear at all. She was only worried when she listened to a lifetime’s worth of advice and rules and safety precautions.

Cara looked over at Mouse. “What do you think? Can I trust him?”

Mouse barked and wagged his tail and came over to them immediately. He pressed up against Gus, who managed not to be knocked over by his enthusiasm. Gus just bumped him with a shoulder when he tried to sniff at the handkerchief Gus was still pressing against her arm.

“Hmm, that seems like a yes,” Cara observed.

“I can offer better references than my brother’s dog, I swear,” Gus said, smiling. “Everyone knows me in town. I could give you phone numbers.”

Cara winced. “If only I hadn’t thrown my phone off a cliff when I fell.”

Gus made a sympathetic face and looked around like he might be able to spot it. “And I don’t have mine with me, or I’d offer it. So I guess I have only Mouse as a character witness.”

“He seems trustworthy,” Cara said. Dogs were supposed to be good judges of character, right? And Gus really did seem like a good guy.

“Okay, yes. Please. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me,” Gus said, giving her a dazzling smile that made her feel hot all over again. “It’s the least I can do.”

Gus peeled the handkerchief away from her arm, far enough for Cara to see a bright stain of blood on it.

“It looks like it’s slowed down, at least,” Gus said. “But we should probably keep it in place.”

“I left my medical tape in the car,” Cara said.

Gus flashed a smile. He was already reaching into the collar of his shirt with his left hand, pulling out a thin gold chain that hung around his neck. She saw at least two others that he left tucked under his shirt. They weren’t ostentatiously displayed, just held close, like they were precious to him.

“This one’s adjustable,” he said, unclasping it gracefully, one-handed. “I can probably get it tight enough to hold this in place for a minute.”

That didn’t seem like it should work, but Cara was willing to let him try. She held the handkerchief in place with her opposite hand while Gus wound the chain around her arm and the makeshift bandage. When he clasped it again it actually did stay in place, wound firmly around her arm but not painfully tight.

“Oh,” Cara said, taking her hand away and flexing her arm experimentally. Everything stayed in place.

“It’s perfect, Gus. Thanks.”

Gus smiled proudly but said only, “No, really, stop thanking me. Come on.”

He helped her up and kept his grip on her hand, leading her to the spot where she’d first seen him. She expected some hidden path to appear, but Gus just stepped out onto a slope that was the next thing to straight up and down. He seemed to think she was going to follow him.

“Uh,” Cara said, planting her feet. “Hold on. You said this wasn’t going to involve rock climbing.”

Gus looked back at her with an expression of concern, his feet planted at angles, his knees slightly bent.

“I’m from Iowa,” Cara blurted. “Where the ground is
flat
.”

Gus looked around. “You can kind of…as long as you stay on one level…”

“No,” Cara said firmly. She’d had enough of sliding down mountainsides today. “I can’t.”

Gus looked back at her and gave a wicked grin. “Guess I’d better carry you, then.”

Cara actually took a half-step back at that, but Gus’s smile didn’t dim.

“I won’t drop you, I promise. I’m stronger than I look.”

“I can try…” Cara said.

The last thing she wanted him to know was just how much she weighed. She pushed ahead determinedly, trying to angle her foot on the steep slope like he had his.

It went out from under her almost immediately. Before she could fall again Gus’s arms were around her, sweeping her up off the ground.

Cara was aware that she had made a noise, probably some kind of squeak. Now she couldn’t make a sound. She was held in Gus’s arms, staring into his gray eyes. She could feel the connection between them more strongly than ever. She wanted to stay here forever.

“I’ve got you,” Gus said softly.

Cara just nodded.

Then Gus took a step and she squeaked again, looking around wildly.

“Here,” Gus said, nodding.

Cara saw that they were now standing just up-slope of a sturdy tree.

“You’re going to put your back against that so you can hop up on my back,” Gus told her. “It’s easier to carry you that way if I’m going to take you all the way home. Like this you’re going to get branches in your face.”

“Okay,” Cara said, just because Gus sounded so confident that that was going to work. “Yeah, sure.”

Gus grinned. “It’ll work, trust me.”

It did work, though. Cara’s feet barely touched the tilting ground before she was wrapping her arms around Gus’s shoulders and her legs around his waist. Gus straightened up under her and started jogging, then running through the trees. He moved like they were on level ground and she weighed no more than a toddler.

“Oh my God,” Cara gasped into his ear. She was soon laughing helplessly at the speed of their run.

She heard barking behind them and realized that Mouse was following them, a low gray blur along the ground.

Gus laughed and started running faster, in bounding strides that somehow found all the clear spaces among the trees. They landed so lightly with each step that it felt like flying. Cara whooped like she was on a roller coaster and held on tight.

In no time at all they were bursting out of the trees onto a gentle grassy slope, and a huge house was looming up before them. It looked almost like a castle, an edifice of stone with an actual tower on one corner and steeply slanting roofs that met at various angles. She could just see a railing where there must be a walkway at the top of the tower’s roof.

Gus bounded right up onto the porch, spinning around and making her laugh harder. Cara raised one arm in the air and whooped in triumph, like they’d just won a race.

It was only when Gus stopped that she saw Mouse again. He was running away across the lawn, back toward the trees.

“Oh!” Cara said, feeling a little dizzy as Gus let her slip back to her feet. “Mouse—”

“He’s fine,” Gus assured her, grinning and seeming not even out of breath. “This whole side of the mountain is his backyard, he won’t get lost.”

Cara opened her mouth to say more, but then she saw the wet patch on Gus’s shoulder. She felt a weird instinctive bolt of fear, thinking Gus was hurt, and then she realized. She had bled through the handkerchief and onto his shirt.

“Oh, Gus,” she touched his shoulder and winced at the tacky wetness of blood. “I’m sorry.”

Gus glanced over at it and shook his head. “Don’t worry about that, let’s just get you patched up.”

Gus took her hand and led her around to the front doors. There was a name carved in stone above them:
Dragomir
.

“Dragomir? Is that your last name?”

“Uh,” Gus said, rubbing his free hand over his hair before opening the door left-handed and tugging her inside. “Sort of. Legally it’s been Gray for about eight generations—I’m Gus Gray, nice to meet you—”

“Cara Linley,” Cara offered, wondering just how old this house was, if Gus’s family had changed their name
eight generations
ago. Cara didn’t have a house to go home to back in Iowa that went back
one
generation.

Then she remembered the signs that she’d driven past, pointing her toward the little town in the valley, which she had bypassed in favor of the scenic overlook.

“Wait, Gray as in Gray’s Hollow?”

“Like I said, everyone in town knows me,” Gus said, sounding actually apologetic.

He tugged Cara through the foyer of the huge house. Her eyes skipped over the rich rugs underfoot, the gleaming wood of the floor and the staircase, the art on the walls and the little sculptures on side tables.

Gus led her to sit down on a padded bench at one side of the stairs and ducked into a door beside it that led to a bathroom.

“I’m also the mayor,” he explained. He reappeared holding a first aid kit and perched on the bench beside her. She raised her arm so that he could get at the cut. He kept his eyes on that as he spoke.

“I’m the fourteenth Mayor Gray in a row. It’s kind of feudal, but people keep writing me in on the ballot and my brother Radu refuses to come home and run against me, so. It’s the least I can do.”

“Radu,” Cara repeated.

Gus unwound the chain and dropped it into her right hand. The handkerchief he put somewhere out of sight.

“Legally Raymond,” Gus explained, and she thought he was trying to distract her as he swabbed the cut with alcohol wipes. “But he refuses to use his English name—Ray Gray, I agree, it’s terrible. His twin is Sorin, but everyone calls him Sunny.”

“Sunny Gray,” Cara said.

She closed her hand on the gold chain as she tried to ignore the sting of the cut under Gus’s hands. Gus seemed to falter for a second.

“There’s a contradiction,” Cara added, trying to show that she was all right.

“Well, that’s Radu and Sunny for you,” Gus said, getting back to it. He tore open a gauze pad.

“That picture over there, that’s me and all my brothers, can you see it?”

Cara looked up and quickly spotted the one he meant. She realized after a second that it wasn’t a photo with a fancy matte finish but a
painting
.

“We had it done about three years ago,” Gus said. He was taping the bandage in place now. “After our dad passed and it was just us boys.”

The picture showed five men standing side by side, all in gorgeously tailored suits. There was a little gap between Gus, who stood at the left, and the next brother. The twins, on the other hand, stood so close it was like they were trying to merge into a single person. There was another brother between them and Gus, who stood with his hands in his pockets, one elbow projecting into the empty space that separated Gus from the rest. At the end of the row, the youngest brother had his head tipped onto the happier-looking twin’s shoulder.

It looked like they were standing near the house, on the green lawn: the background showed the forest slopes rising behind them.

“There,” Gus said, patting her arm, and she realized he was done bandaging her up.

She stood up cautiously, but she didn’t get dizzy this time, and she took a few steps to look more closely at the portrait.

“That’s me,” Gus said unnecessarily, following her over to point to his own image.

“And the boys: Laurence, who visits exactly twice a year for no more than three days at a time, so we had to schedule this around him—Radu and Sunny, the twins, and Teddy. Teo. He insists he’s all grown up and we should call him Teo now.”

“What a handsome family,” Cara said, to keep herself from asking about that little gap, and the fact that the big house was perfectly quiet around them and even Mouse didn’t seem to live here with Gus.

“But I’m the handsomest,” Gus insisted, smiling brightly. “Aren’t I?”

“Of course,” Cara agreed, and she realized as she reached out to touch him that she was still holding the chain in her right hand. “Oh—here.”

She held it out to him, opening her hand to give it back, and his bright smile suddenly dimmed. He looked down at it like she was offering him a bloody piece of bandage.

“Did I,” she said uncertainly, still holding it out. Had it gotten damaged somehow? Should she offer to replace it? How
could
she replace anything that belonged to the man who owned this house?

“No, it’s—” Gus shook his head sharply. “It’s fine.”

He took it gingerly from her hand, shook his head again as if it felt fuzzy, and then said, “I—I should go change my shirt. Excuse me. If you want a phone or a computer or anything, the office is that door. Use anything you need.”

And just like that Gus turned away and all but ran up the stairs, leaving Cara standing alone in his beautiful home.

***

Stupid
, Gus thought,
stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course she gave it back. She didn’t even know it was a gift.

Cara was human, and not a human acquainted with dragons. She wouldn’t know what it meant for him to let a piece of his most personal hoard leave his body, how special a gift it was.

She’d had no idea how much it pleased his dragon to see her adorned with a piece of his gold. Gold that was not only adorning her but
protecting
her.