The Dragon's Heart (Dragon Lore) (2 page)

He moved with inhuman speed. He grabbed the fucker’s head and shifted, driving the man into the wood of the pool table.

As Daniel stepped back, the bartender’s voice boomed out. “Leave the weapons. I’ll clean ‘em up with the rest of the garbage.” Daniel turned around slowly, and saw the big man shrug. “It’s not a Friday night around here if I’m not tossing out an unconscious body or two, though I have to say you’re the first to take on six of this particular gang and not leave on a stretcher.”

Daniel let out a snort as he headed for the door.

He didn’t bother to check the wound until he’d hoisted a leg over his Ducati at the back of the deserted parking lot. Wounds never bothered him, but with Shelby’s face all over the fucking news tonight, at least the pain would be a distraction. The slash wasn’t anything he couldn’t heal on his own, but his heart felt like it was on fire, and panic was starting to seep into his brain.

Brushing the fear off, he stopped to buy several bottles of hard alcohol. If the pain failed, he’d drink himself comatose.

He dug his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans when it chirped, snapping it open without bothering to see who was calling. Of the five people who had his number, his sister was the only one who ever used it. “Yeah.”

“Daniel. You need to get to the hospital right now.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear, scowled at it for a moment, before he glanced down at the wound. “Seren, it’s not that bad.”

The hellion of an ER doctor let out a growl. “How would you know?” she yelled. “I’m the one who’s been trying to save her life for the last ten minutes.”

Daniel went still. The fire in his heart intensified, leaving him gasping. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear he was having a heart attack. “What?” He snarled, hoping he was imagining things. “Who?”

“Who?” she asked. “Your mate, you idiot. Someone shot her. So whatever the hell is going on with you, forget it and get your ass here. Now–before she dies on my table.”

“My
what
?” He roared. “Seren, what the hell are you talking about?”

After a full minute of silence that grated on Daniel’s every nerve, the woman finally spoke again, the fury in her voice turned to utter confusion. “Wait. You really don’t know what I’m talking about?” she asked.

“No,” he snapped, not in the mood for shit. “I don’t, and I don’t care. Now if you don’t mind, I have plans with a couple bottles of vodka.”

“Daniel!” She shouted his name before he could hang up on her. “I have no more idea of what is going on than you do, but you need to get your ass here, or I’m sending Cage after you. Whoever this girl is, it’s not good. I am warning you, if she dies on my watch I will cut your heart out myself and feed it to Adrian for breakfast.”

The line went dead. He had no idea what the hell the woman was talking about, but as the pain over his chest intensified, he started his bike and roared out into traffic.

* * * *

Daniel didn’t bother with the parking lot as he pulled into the hospital emergency bay ten minutes later. He still didn’t know what he was doing there. For fuck’s sake, he’d
know
if he had a mate. It couldn’t happen without his express participation. He was always sober and coherent during sex. Because he knew the rules, he’d made sure never to sleep with the same woman more than once, just in case. Even with Shelby, the only time he’d broken his own rule, it had only been twice, one short of the needed three for a mating.

He’d barely made it in through the automatic doors before Dr. Seren Cage stepped into his path. She glared up at him–all the way up at him.

“Thank the gods,” she muttered as she grabbed his hand and started walking, leaving him no choice but to follow her if he didn’t want to yank her arm out of its socket. “I have no idea what is happening, but I know it’s your mark.”

At four-foot-eleven and a hundred and ten pounds of pregnant, heartbreaking beauty, Seren wasn’t anyone’s version of a hard-core emergency room doctor, but people only made the mistake of underestimating her once. What she lacked in physical size, she more than made up for in attitude and ability.

“Okay, whatever prank you’re pulling on me, it’s not funny, Seren. I don’t have a fucking mate, and it’s the only way a woman would have my mark.” He knew Seren worried about his isolated lifestyle, but this wasn’t funny. He raked a hand through his hair. “I think I’d know.”

She shook her head, appearing as confused as he felt. “Come on. We can figure this out after we save her life.”

As she led Daniel through the ER bay, it wasn’t Seren or the mystery woman that worried him. It was the massive male leaning against the window next to one of the secure rooms, his scarred face furious and deadly as he watched them approach.

“What the hell is your husband doing here?” Daniel demanded, as the odd pain in his heart started to intensify. He raised his fist to rub at it again.

Seren noticed the action with a cant of her head, her face softening. “Your mate was shot, and she needs your energy to fight. It will leave both of you vulnerable, and no one will get past Cage.” She grabbed the clipboard from the box next to her husband, while bumping the door open with her hip. “Now come on, we’re wasting time.”

As Daniel followed her into the room, he was sure Seren had lost her mind, until he saw Shelby lying on the bed. His heart simply failed. Pain that had nothing to do with his chest wound tore through him, and his body started to shake violently.

Her shoulder was a mangled mess. Her face was pale beneath the ventilator, her body too still to be the vibrant she-devil he remembered.

“What the hell happened to her?” He roared. “Why are you just standing there? Goddamn it, Seren, fix her!”

Seren’s voice softened as she put her pregnant body in front of his. “I can’t. I’ve done everything I can. Only her mate can save her now.”

Daniel swallowed hard as the pain in his heart threatened to split his chest open. “I’m not her mate, goddamn it.” His hand shook as he shoved it through his hair. “It’s not me.”

Seren turned to her husband. Adrian simply nodded, putting his massive body in the doorway, blocking Daniel from leaving.

“Take your shirt off,” she ordered. Instead of giving Daniel time to obey, she simply laid her clipboard on the bed and moved in, yanking at his jacket. When she saw the gaping wound in his chest, she inhaled a sharp breath. She didn’t hesitate. She shoved his black Henley shirt up and moved in closer, poking around the inch-deep gouge.

“Oh, Daniel, why do you do this to yourself?” she asked as she stepped back.

He kept his mouth closed because he didn’t have an answer for her. At least not one he felt like sharing. He’d been trying to escape thoughts of Shelby for a year, and yet his only option some nights was a fight. The physical pain was much easier to bear than the mental.

Her touch was gentler as she pulled the sheet covering Shelby down, exposing the tell-tale marking over the swell of her left breast.

Daniel staggered back a step as he felt his entire existence shift beneath his feet.
Ryuu
, what had he done?

“Okay, good,” Seren breathed. “Now I need you to help me fix her.”

2

It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t. Yet the proof was real. It was his mark over Shelby’s heart, identical to the one over his own. Unique to him. Every dragon was born with one. It was, quite literally, what marked a mate as taken. When a dragon mated, their mark transferred to their chosen other half.

Directly above his mark on Shelby’s breast was a mangled mess where the bullet had torn through delicate flesh.

“Alright.” He clenched his hands into fists to stop them from trembling as he moved in closer to the bed. “What do I have to do?”

Seren was already moving. “She needs your energy. She doesn’t have enough on her own right now. Without it, she doesn’t have the strength to fight as I heal her.” She pointed to the chair next to Shelby’s hip. “Sit and grab her hand.”

He obeyed without thinking, taking Shelby’s fragile hand into his.

Seren glanced at her husband. “You know what to do.”

“Don’t worry, wife.” Adrian Cage moved in front of the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “No one’s getting in.”

Daniel barely heard them. “What happened to her?” he asked finally, his voice hoarse to his own ears.

“She was shot exiting her car at the premiere.” Seren moved to the other side of the bed. “My brother’s in town this week. As soon as I saw your mark on her, I sent him to see what he could find out.”

“I want to know as soon as he gets back.” He didn’t bother to ask which brother. She had two, Luca and Micah, but Micah was so deep in the Chicago underworld he wasn’t safe to be around dragon or human population, while Luca had been fighting side by side with Daniel for centuries.

As she gently placed her hands over Shelby’s abdomen, Seren’s focus sharpened on Daniel. “I need you to concentrate. She needs everything you have if she’s going to survive this. She’s lost more blood than any human can withstand. If you hadn’t mated to her and changed her on a cellular level she’d have bled out already.” Her face softened, and Daniel was dimly aware of her voice going sharper. Like she was trying to channel his energy on Shelby before he internally combusted, which is exactly what he felt crawling up the base of his spine. The need to explode. “Focus on her, Daniel. Use your emotion and determination. Remember why you mated with her in the first place.”

His gaze snapped to hers. Her voice and demeanor had turned steely. “It doesn’t matter how it happened, or why. You mated with her. It meant something when it happened. I need you to use that emotion now.”

He tried. He closed his eyes to block out all the bad memories. She’d been amazing, he thought, until he’d come down from his sexual high to find the hired gun she’d sent to kill him.

“No.” Daniel’s head came up at the sharpness in Seren’s voice. Sweat beaded on her brow. She was chanting frantically as she tried to repair the internal damage caused by the bullet’s concussion. “I’m losing her. Goddamn it, Daniel! I need you to try harder.”

He let out a low sound of frustration. This time, he forced everything else out but the good as he concentrated on pushing his energy into her.

He went back to that night in his head. She’d been so beautiful when he’d picked her up. Halfway through the date, he’d realized how much he goddamned liked her.

She’d been easy to talk to despite their differences. Which said a lot. He never found talking to anyone easy.

But Shelby...Daniel struggled to open his eyes against the severe energy drain. Her small body was impossibly still, all of the compacted energy that had fascinated him gone, replaced with the steady
whoosh
of the ventilator that kept her breathing. She’d charmed him when he’d been positive it wasn’t possible for him to be charmed, and against all common sense, every time she’d smiled, he’d felt his world swing right.

Part of him had expected her to want to hit the main paparazzi zones in LA for some free publicity, but instead they’d ended at a small bistro barely big enough for the ten couples there. She’d been gracious when people recognized her, and though he’d felt out of his depth and like an uncoordinated giant, she’d been genuinely interested in him. Despite more than two millennia of not talking unless necessity dictated, she always drew him into conversation.

“You’re doing great,” Seren murmured. “Her body’s slowly responding.” She glanced at him for the barest of seconds. “How did you meet her?”

“I was hired to head up security on one of her movies.”

“The king? Doing security?”

“Yes. There were some rumors floating around about Hunters that I wanted to personally check out.”

Seren smiled the slightest bit, though her focus never wavered from Shelby. “Talkative as ever, aren’t you. Come on, Daniel. I’ve known you a very long time and we both know Shelby is not your type. I can’t think of anything you’d hate more than the possibility of being in the spotlight.”

“I like her,” he shrugged, before he amended with a growl, “
liked
her, anyway. But it was almost a year ago.”

“What happened?”

His lip lifted in a sneer. “Is it important?”

Her gaze lifted in a dead-on imitation of her husband’s irritated scowl. “Yes,” she said slowly, studying him as if searching for a head injury. “It is. Start talking.”