Wicked Dark Dragon (Dragon Heat) (2 page)

He clasped her thin wrist and swore a vow. “I will save you, Ivy.”

“Hurry. I can’t hold on much longer. She’s going to break me—and then I won’t be able to protect you or the other dragons.” She tugged her wrist free and placed her palm against his chest. Her very touch branded him, and he inhaled sharply as the blistering pain scorched his skin. Catching him by surprise, she lifted her other hand and slapped him right across the face. Despite her small stature, she walloped him as hard as Griff ever had. He didn’t think his seven-foot-tall cousin had ever knocked his block off quite like Ivy. “Wake up!”

Bolting upright in bed, Madoc clutched his burning chest and sucked in a ragged breath. Sweat sluiced down his skin, soaking his sheets and cooling his overheated body. He touched his stinging face and winced. If he’d had any doubts about the veracity of the dream, the bruise forming on his cheek and the pain over his heart convinced him it was real.

On legs as shaky as a newborn colt’s, he clambered out of bed but only managed two steps before he dropped to his knees. Sapped of energy, he used the nearest piece of furniture to haul himself upright. It finally occurred to him that his ravenous hunger and thirst and this relentless tiredness he had been experiencing were because Ivy had been draining him to survive. Wherever she was being held, she was being deprived of food and water and deliberately weakened.

And it enraged him.

Fueled by his anger, Mad left his bedroom and headed downstairs. He kept a hand on the wall to maintain his balance and avoid a nasty fall. When he hit the living room, he dropped down on his couch and reached for the laptop he had been using a few hours earlier to research dreams. The moment the screen awakened, he typed in the name she had written on the mirror but his fingers slowed as he hit the last few keys.

“Ivy.” His whisper sounded so harsh in the stillness of his home. Blood pounded in his head as he suddenly realized who this mysterious dream girl was. “
Her
.”

Memories from years ago, during a time when the blood feud between dragons and Knights had been fomented to a fever pitch, blitzed Mad. Ivy looked so familiar to him because she favored her mother Phoebe, a female dragon from the ancient Niko Drakon’s tribe.

Impetuous. Wasn’t that how Niko had described his kin?

Phoebe had been young, as far as dragons go, not more than three hundred years old, and she had had the audacity to fall head over heels in love with a Knight of St. George.

Mad rubbed the back of his neck. Ages ago, he and Griffin had been tasked with taking Phoebe and her human lover into custody to protect them. Not surprisingly, Phoebe had seen it as kidnapping, and she had plotted with the father of her unborn child to escape at the first chance. Niko had managed to keep them under lock and key long enough for the baby to be born, but somehow her lover had overpowered Niko.

The couple and their baby hadn’t made it far before those vicious, murdering bastards of the Knights of St. George caught up with them. Phoebe had died protecting her child, but her lover—Yves, Mad finally remembered—had fought to the bitter end. The Brotherhood had arrived too late to save him. Madoc had held the dying man’s hand as he drew his last breath and had been the one to dig the graves where they had buried the murdered couple.

And that precious little baby? She had quieted the moment Niko had taken her in his arms and rocked her so gently. Her tribe mate had sworn he would protect her and he had. The alchemist dragon had cooked up one of his concoctions to suppress the supernatural side of her until she reached adulthood. More than anything, Niko had wanted that tiny baby girl to enjoy a normal childhood and early life instead of the hell that she would have certainly known if Niko had kept her at his estate.

Batting away the ugly memories, Mad finished typing in Ivy’s full name and searched for any information on her. As he scanned the results, he touched the crook of his arm and thought of the blood he had given Niko for that potion. Niko had explained that dragon blood from a male belonging to a rival tribe would cancel out the Knight blood in the girl until she became of age and it would make her impossible to track.

Mad hadn’t given a second thought to donating his blood. He had sworn his life to the Brotherhood, and if Niko asked him to bleed for the cause, he would happily slice open his wrist.

It appeared the potion had worked. Clearly, Ivy had been able to grow up unbothered and off the radar of the Knights of St. George. She had gone to college before the Knights had tracked her down and taken her captive. There was no doubt in his mind that it had to be them holding her now. That creepy fucking voice that had shattered the dream and called him Welshman had to belong to their Seer. The Knights saw some potential use for Ivy, no doubt as a weapon against the dragons.

The real question? Why was she reaching out to him? Niko was her kin and her tribal leader. Her bond with Niko should have been the strongest and the easiest to exploit. Family ties were always the most powerful for dragons until they found their mates.

Mate.

He swallowed hard. While he wanted to immediately discount that possibility, Mad couldn’t ignore the facts before him. It wasn’t at all uncommon for mates to find each other in dreams. Considering the scarcity of their species these days, there were often long distances between tribal compounds. With their sensitivity to psychic energy, dragon shifters had no trouble communicating on that level.

But that blood he had given Niko… What if it had screwed up things in a way the alchemist had never intended? What if Ivy was now tied to him because of the potion and not because they were true mates? Was their bond
real
? Would it last? Or was this simply a side effect of Niko’s elixir?

No one really understood how dragon mates came to be. In the old days, they had been called star mates or soul bonds. Even with all the science available to them now, no one could say with any certainty how it worked or even why. It just did. There was a moment of recognition, a spark, and there was no going back once that link was awakened.

Closing his eyes, he ran his fingers along his lips. God, he could still taste and feel her. The urge to save Ivy, to bring her to his home, nurse her back to health, pamper and protect her forever overwhelmed him. Heat rolled low in his belly as he remembered those soft sighs and the slight whimpers she had issued as he had claimed her mouth. The desire to find her and mate her and forever mark her as
his
was too strong to fight.

Embracing that overpowering sensation, he hoped it would aid his search for Ivy. Her ominous warning that she couldn’t hold on much longer and that more than just his life was at stake spurred him onward. He discovered a social media blitz from a young woman named Eris Jones who appeared to be Ivy’s best friend at college. He skimmed the flyer and collected the necessary details. The pair had been vacationing during spring break at a popular Mexican resort when Ivy had gone missing at a club, probably the same one she had shown him in his dreams.

The rest of his search turned up even more troubling news. Ivy’s parents had been killed in a house fire nearly a year earlier. At first glance, it seemed like nothing more than a tragic accident, but Mad had a bad feeling the Knights had been involved. He wasn’t fully aware of the details of the cloaking magic Niko had worked on Ivy and her adoptive parents, Susie and Miguel Morales, but it was possible that their deaths had allowed the Knights to break that magic and get to their daughter.

To my mate.

His chest tightened, and he reached up to rub his sternum in the hopes of easing the ache gripping his heart. When he touched his chest, Mad hissed and yanked back his hand. He glanced down at his bare skin and spotted the red, raw patches there. Remembering the way Ivy’s fingertips had burned him just seconds before she had smacked him, he jumped off the couch and rushed into the closest bathroom. He shielded his eyes from the bright glare of the light and waited for them to adjust before he glanced at his reflection in the mirror.

Pride welled up inside him and caused him to grin. His brilliant sprite of a mate had scorched him with the location of the place she was being held. His Spanish was rusty, but he still remembered the word for prison and recognized the name of the Mexican state of Veracruz.

Armed with her location, Mad rushed upstairs and threw open the door of his closet. As he hastily jammed his legs into a pair of jeans, he considered contacting Griffin. His cousin was locked away in an underground lair with a female dragon belonging to a rather unique line of Naga shifters. Just days into their synced heat phase, the pair was giving off a powerful scent that would make them easy targets for the Knights to track. He couldn’t risk alerting Griffin and drawing his cousin out of that lair. He was safe there with Avani.

He thought about calling Ignatius, the Brotherhood’s leader, or Niko for backup but he hesitated. If Ivy was mistaken about her location or if the Knights holding her had managed to confuse or infiltrate her thoughts, he could be leading the two men into a trap. Until he was absolutely certain she was there, he had to exercise caution.

Throwing some clothes and supplies into an overnight bag, he rubbed his hand across the throbbing marks on his chest. Whatever it took, he would find Ivy. No matter what the cost, he would save his mate.

S
lumped in the corner of a dank, dark cell, Ivy Morales ignored the pulsing ache in her empty belly and hugged her knees tight to her chest. Naked and dirty, she tried to stay awake. She focused on the pain caused by the hard stone floor beneath her and the chains locked around her ankles and wrists. Stretching her neck, she grimaced at the unceasing squeeze of the tight collar biting into her throat. The leather strap had been fitted with some sort of shocking mechanism. She had long since stopped trying to remove the collar or attempt an escape or the use of her gift.

Gift? More like curse
, she thought grumpily. All her life, Ivy had suspected she was different than the other girls. It wasn’t simply the fact that she had been adopted shortly after birth either. Though her parents had always been open and upfront about the way she had come into their lives, they had never given her any reason to doubt their love for her. She might not have shared their genes or blood but she was their daughter in all the ways that mattered.

But she had always been…strange. Quirky. That was the word people used to describe her most. She had a hard time telling whether that was praise or censure. Probably the latter.

She had been seven the first time she had realized she could persuade other people to do things. Thankfully she had been too afraid to try her little trick more than a handful of times. Even at that young age, the guilt of getting exactly what she wanted had gotten to her. All those morning catechism studies at the private Catholic school she had attended had given her a healthy dose of conscience.

Over time, her gift matured until finally she could see the shortest snippets of the future. The night of her thirteenth birthday, Ivy had experienced her first vision. She had bumped into her bachelor uncle and spotted him smiling down at a pretty blonde woman wearing a white wedding gown. It had been the briefest glimpse of a possibility of a future, and it had intrigued her.

Four months later, she had walked into her math teacher’s classroom on the first day of school and spotted that same blonde woman standing near a whiteboard. Curious about the possibilities of her vision, Ivy had finagled a way to get her uncle to come with her to an open house that semester and had introduced the pair. By Easter, they were engaged. The happy event had confirmed her suspicion that her true gift was matchmaking. With one touch, she could see the perfect mate for any person.

Resting her head against the wall, she picked up one of the sharp-edged rocks littering the cell floor and used it to scratch another line on her collection of tick marks. Every time she shared a dream with
him
, she made a start at the top of the new mark. Tonight, she drew a straight line across the bottom of the newest line to remind herself that she hadn’t made contact with him. It had been two nights since she had given him her message, and she hadn’t been able to reach him again.

Running her fingers along the many groups of marks, she felt helpless and frightened. She had planned to use them to keep track of her days in captivity but she couldn’t bring herself to count them up anymore. The despair of her totally shit situation threatened to reduce her to tears, but she refused to give that creepy woman shrouded in black the satisfaction of even one salty drop.

Ivy hadn’t seen the woman she had dubbed the Mind Miner since her third night in captivity, but she could feel the evil presence lurking somewhere in this abandoned prison. It hadn’t taken her very long to figure out that the Mind Miner wasn’t interested in digging through the memories of her happy childhood. No, she only wanted to get her eerie phantom fingers on the dreams about dragons and the men with swords.

Since childhood, Ivy had been plagued with bizarre and troubling dreams of bloody battles during ancient times. She had dreamed of historical eras with such incredible attention to detail and such vividness that they felt
real
. She could feel the wetness of the muddy battlegrounds under her bare feet. She could smell the metallic stink of blood spilled there. She could hear the clink of heavy swords slamming against the scaled hide of enormous fire-breathing and thunder-making dragons.

The many times she had awoken in tears, her parents had consoled her with assurances that the nightmares were simply the side effect of an overactive imagination and too many dark books or violent video games before bed—but Ivy had never believed it. Just as she never doubted her strange ability to see tiny glimpses of the future and to be able to influence others’ actions, Ivy had always believed those dreams of a bitter feud between the winged creatures and the armed warriors were more than figments of a childish imagination.

No, they were memories. She was beginning to understand that they weren’t the memories of one single person but many. Rubbing her forehead, she wondered if she would ever get the answers to all of her questions. Who were these dragons? Who were those warriors? What did this woman in black want with her?

Am I a dragon? Why is that nasty woman so interested in my dream connection with
him
?

Even though she was freezing, filthy, and exhausted, Ivy still experienced a wicked thrill of delight whenever she thought of the great big beast of a man who came to her dream world. With tattoos covering his brawny arms and wide chest, he looked so incredibly intimidating, but there was a kindness about him. He had a mischievous smile that instantly set her at ease.

Though he didn’t look very old, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight, his startlingly green eyes told a different story. He had seen a great deal of hardship and pain in his life, a life she suspected had stretched across a century or more. It sounded almost too fantastic to even think a man could live so long, but their shared dreams were equally as fantastic yet nonetheless real.

Yearning for the connection that brought her such peace during her imprisonment, Ivy closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cool stone. She breathed deeply and slowly and focused all of her thoughts on the handsome face that filled her dreams. If she could see him for even one minute, it would make the next day of captivity bearable.

Exhaustion dragged her down into the murky darkness of her dream space. Suddenly, she was flying. A swooping sensation rushed through her stomach and into her chest. She could feel the cool but humid air blasting her bare skin. The scent of the sea filled her nose. The flap of heavy wings echoed in her ears.

My wings
, she realized. Just as she had brought that great big beast of a man into her dreams and pulled him into her body, he seemed to have finally done the same to her. Did he know? Was he aware of her presence? A rippling sensation in her chest confirmed that he did. She felt…surprised. She realized that he was the one feeling some shock at having her experiencing his dream. Only…

This wasn’t a dream. The thought hit her with a resounding thud. He was awake—and she was asleep. He was flying in his dragon form, and somehow she had drifted into his conscious. Something about his shifted form made him vulnerable to her.
Curious
, she thought with interest.

With a slow turn, the dragon began a controlled but angled descent. Even in the darkness, she could see the pale stone of the ancient prison looming ahead. Though his speed had slowed, he was still coming in exceedingly fast. When he landed on a rampart, she felt the stones shudder beneath his massive feet. A strange rumbling sensation rolled through her chest and out of her throat.

In the distance, she heard men shouting. Soon, bullets were whizzing by him and popping when they hit the stone wall behind him. She felt his wide, heavy wings unfurling. They flicked in a warning motion, but the armed men who came at him were undeterred. Stamping his foot, he smacked his wings together and an unbelievably loud thunderclap tore the night.

The shockwave of the blast tossed her right out of him. Floating in a bizarre space between reality and conscious, she hovered over him and then in front of him. Scarlet red and so very big, the dragon snarled viciously and beat his wings together, sending smaller bursts of that painful energy into the night. The thunderclaps rendered men unconscious. His attackers dropped to their knees and fell onto their faces.

He was winning! He was going to rescue her!

But her joy was short lived.

An agonizing bolt of electricity screamed through her neck. Though still unconscious in this dreamy haze, Ivy was fully aware that her captors were making use of the collar they had fitted around her neck at the time of her kidnapping to zap her in the most horrific way. The dragon tossed back his head, baring his vicious fangs, and roared with fury.
He feels my pain
.

Though she sensed the beast wanted to rip the men surrounding him limb from limb, he lowered his wings and let his arms fall to his sides. He surrendered reluctantly but quietly, his huge chest heaving and his talon-tipped fingers curling at his sides in tight fists. His strange red eyes closed, and she could hear him speaking to her.

Go. Wake. I’m coming for you.

A jolt of white-hot heat pierced her belly and caused Ivy to gasp. With a startled cry, she woke as directed. Though her neck burned, she felt the soothing heat inspired by the dragon—her dragon—spreading into her chest. It warmed and settled her nerves. Eyes closed, she concentrated on that familiar feeling. It was him. It was her Beast.

Grinning and feeling giddy despite her rather depressing circumstances, she kept her eyes tightly shut and tried to locate him. She had long ago learned to trust her instincts, and they told her that she belonged to this strange dragon-man hybrid. Somehow, someway, their paths were destined to cross. He might have appeared to her in a dream, but he had come to her now in the flesh.

Body thrumming and heart racing, she finally located him. He was like a bright pulsing dot on a radar screen, his very aura slamming against hers like a sonar ping. Fainter but just as nasty as ever was the presence of the Mind Miner. Ivy opened her thoughts to the creepy woman who had tormented her for more than twenty days and felt the most unexpected sensation—sheer delight. The old bat was absolutely thrilled that Beast had arrived.

Ivy feared that she was being held captive to lure and trap Beast here, but he was far wiser and too battle-hardened to do something so stupid. He wouldn’t walk into a trap without a plan to get them both out. It was silly of her to put so much faith in a man she had never even met in real life, but he was her only chance of surviving and escaping. She believed in him.

But, my God, the poor man was in a world of hurt at the moment. Her entire body ached and tingled. She could feel the pressure of punches and kicks slamming into her back and belly, but her Beast seemed to be consciously trying to sever the bond between them so she wouldn’t feel the full brunt of the brutal assault.
To protect me…

The fighting seemed to go on and on and on. When it finally stopped, she had tears running down her face. Beast had been defeated, but she had a sneaking suspicion he had allowed the people holding her captive to best him. Surely there had to be an easier way to gain access to her than letting a group of armed men beat the shit out of him, but he appeared to like doing things the hard way.

A short time later, the heavy door at the end of the cell block clanged and banged as it opened. Loud grunts and furious cursing, plus the sound of dragging feet, gave her all the clues she needed to fill in the blanks. Considering how big Beast appeared in her dreams, in real life he would be one hell of a monstrously sized man. It wouldn’t be easy to haul him anywhere, even with all the manpower guarding the old prison.

When she got her first glimpse of Beast, her heart fluttered wildly. She couldn’t see his face because his head hung low as he was dragged down the corridor, but that didn’t matter. He had made such an impression on her in their shared dreams that she easily recreated his handsome face from memory. While the strong edge to his jaw made him look dangerous, the seemingly perpetual lift to the corners of his sexy mouth gave him an approachable, friendly air. He reminded her of the jocks she saw around campus, all brawn and teasing smiles. There was a rugged appeal to him, especially with those thick, muscular arms and a chest that made her want to cuddle in close and share his heat.

Seeing him now, all naked and sweaty from his valiant fight, did wild things to her body. A primal burst of lust and need exploded within her. She caught his scent as the cell door was flung open. All her life, she had been more aware of smells than the average person, and tonight was no different. She had no trouble picking out the woodsy scent of him beneath the blood and sweat.

With a series of growls and a storm of cursing, the guards finally managed to toss Beast into the cell. He hit the stone floor hard and didn’t move. Fear gripped her. Was he dead? Was he fatally injured? He didn’t even move when a pair of shorts and a T-shirt were thrown at him.

Afraid the guards would zap her if she moved too close, she waited until the cell door had been locked to scuttle toward Beast, but the damned chains hooked to the cuffs on her ankles and wrists didn’t have enough slack to let her reach him. She jerked hard but didn’t have the strength to break them. They were too tight on her wrists to even try to slip them either.

The rattling chains seemed to rouse Beast. He issued a gruff, rumbling noise that seemed to emanate from deep within his chest. Planting both palms against the floor, he pushed up onto his hands and slowly lifted his head. A normal man would have sported two black eyes and a broken nose after the beating he had taken, but this man—
her
man—looked to be already healing. His cheek and jaw were swollen and red, and blood dripped from his nose but he seemed to have escaped his brush with violence without any broken bones.

Well. Maybe not.

When he started to crawl toward her, he grimaced and placed a guarding hand to his right side. The shadows hid whatever damage he had sustained trying to reach her. A couple of broken ribs wouldn’t have been out of the question. They didn’t seem to be slowing him down any as he crept toward her like some kind of hungry carnivore.