Wicked Dark Dragon (Dragon Heat) (8 page)

It hit him quite suddenly that the drugs they had pumped into his body were meant to weaken the mental walls he had erected to keep sensitive information safe. Under the influence of the poisons circulating through his system, he would be vulnerable to mining by that horrid Seer. With Ivy’s deep connection to him, she was the perfect conduit for exploring his mind and getting to his secrets. He knew the locations of all the Brotherhood safe houses, the communes where their people lived, and the unique dragon breeds who were at the greatest risk of extinction.

And Ivy must have known that. It was the reason she had immediately connected with him as soon as he had gone unconscious. By sheer force, his future mate had tossed him into their shared dream space and then brought him here to this well-guarded spot.

But what were they doing to her while he was hiding in here? His chest ached. It felt as if a painful vise squeezed the air from his lungs. Judging by the storm raging outside, the Seer was assailing Ivy with her full might. Were they hurting her badly? Was she crying out for him, begging for him to save her?

The minutes ticked by like hours. Stuck in this altered reality, he couldn’t be sure if the clock on the far wall was correct. How long did five minutes in a dream world last in real life? One hour? Five?

The worry ate at him, gnawing at his gut and leaving him on the verge of a panic attack. She might have put him away in this library to contain him and his secrets, but the connection they shared couldn’t be totally stopped. Her fear and anxiety spilled over him.

“Ivy.” Her name echoed in the cavernous library. “Let me help you.”

She didn’t answer him immediately, but when she did, he could tell she was weakening. “Soon.”

One word spoken with such pain coloring her voice. He flexed his wings and let loose a deep rumble of irritation. How much longer until the sedatives wore off and he had complete control of his physical body again? That had to be why she was dragging this out and taking so long to let him free.

“Mad.”

He spun around the moment the proximity of her voice registered. She slumped against a bookshelf and held on to the wooden edge with a white-knuckled grip. “Ivy!”

With one long leap, he crossed the distance between them and gathered her up in his arms. She weighed a fraction of what she did in real life, her dream presence so faint that she hardly existed at all in this world she had created for them. Careful of his talons, he swept his scaled fingertips down her face. “Let me wake, Ivy. It’s time.”

She exhaled a shuddery breath and finally nodded. “Be careful. She’s stronger tonight and very angry.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m older and more powerful than her. My body is quickly metabolizing the drugs.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead in silent gratitude for the way she had sacrificed her own comfort and safety to protect him. If he had his way, this would be the very last time she was ever put in this position. “Wake me, Ivy. Wake me now.”

Her feather-light body disintegrated right before his eyes. She faded to nothingness and disappeared from the library. A quiver of panic slashed at his chest, but he calmed himself with the knowledge that she was incredibly skilled at navigating the journey between reality and this dream world. Rising tall, he focused on the sensation of waking and regaining consciousness. The moment the Seer felt him stir, she would pounce on him and try to pry into his most secret thoughts. He had to be ready for her.

Layer by layer, the heavy sleepiness was drawn back and Mad surfaced from the dream like a deep-sea diver making a slow ascent. With a ragged inhale, he came out of his drugged sleep. Groggy and disoriented, he blinked rapidly and breathed hard. Painfully bright lights blinded him, and he flinched, shutting his eyes tightly. He tried to move but couldn’t. Heavy manacles bound him to a cold metal slab, probably the same one Ivy had described during her first day in captivity.

A second after he felt the chains and cuffs holding him in place, he became aware of Ivy’s smaller body on top of his. No longer stuck in that dream world, he was fully human—and totally naked. There was nothing between his hot slick body and hers. The Knights had stripped them both and tied them together on top of this slab, forcing their bodies into intimate contact. He had an extremely bad feeling about what that sicko Seer and her crew of Knight minions were trying to accomplish.

“Ivy?” His whisper sounded unbelievably loud in the quiet furnace of a room. When she didn’t stir, he pressed his cheek against hers and nuzzled her gently. “Wake up, little bit.”

“Beast…”

The nickname inspired a smile, but it quickly vanished when he scented her blood. Lifting his head, he spotted the thin streams of it running from her nose and ears. Guilt slashed at him, and fear for her health left him cold. “Oh, sugar…”

“They’re coming.”

His stomach clenched as he imagined the worst. “The Knights?”

“Your brothers.” She inhaled a shaky breath. “The dragons.”

His senses dulled by the drugs the Knights had shot into him, Mad couldn’t lock onto the invisible signals of his kind. Even so, he didn’t doubt Ivy. She was so incredibly special and so very talented. If she said his brothers were coming, they were coming.

He nuzzled her again and found comfort in the way she pressed against his chest, her bare breasts warm against his skin. “Just hang on, Ivy. We’ll be safe soon.”

Within seconds his brothers were close enough that not even the drugs still coursing through his system could block them out. He counted the pings on his mental radar—one, two, three, four—and hastily identified them. Niko, Griff, Ignatius, and Stig had come to their rescue.
Finally
, he thought with a great deal of frustration. What in the hell had kept them away for so long?

That was a question that would have to wait. Right now, he was more worried about Ivy’s injuries than monitoring the movement of his friends through the prison. Ivy flinched and gasped a few times. He realized she was watching or feeling the battle happening in the abandoned prison.

Griffin’s familiar pulse appeared in the hallway. One good kick was all it took for his cousin to send the cell door flying into the room. Mad lifted his head and was just barely able to make out the sight of Griff crouching down and turning to the side to fit through the doorway. One look at the table, and his cousin stopped dead in his tracks. Mad could only imagine what their precarious position looked like.

Stig followed hot on Griffin’s heels. Even in his dragon form, there was no masking his shock. Realizing both men had a perfect view of his mate’s naked curves, he snarled angrily and shouted, “Quit staring and unlatch me. She’s hurt, and she needs help.
Now!
”

Griff hurried toward them and gripped the chains binding Mad’s wrists in his fearsome hands. With two hard jerks, he shattered the links. Mad immediately wrapped his arms around Ivy’s smaller, fragile body and sat up, cradling her tight to his chest. “Sweetheart?” He pushed the damp strands of her hair from her face and ran his thumb through the slick blood dripping from her nose. “Ivy?”

But she wouldn’t rouse.

Griff made quick work of breaking the manacles around his ankles while Stig searched the adjoining cells for intel. His cousin placed a vicious-looking hand on his bare shoulder and gave it a squeeze, the very tips of those black talons scratching his skin. In his dragon form, Griff couldn’t speak very well because their throat anatomy was totally changed. He didn’t have to say any words to convey his message. Mad read it loud and clear.

“Is she alive?” Niko, fully human now, raced into the cell, his bronzed and heavily tattooed skin splattered with blood from the kills he had made. Ignatius came into the room behind him but remained in his shifted form. Blood dripping down his scaled chest and from the fangs protruding from his mouth.

“Yes,” Mad finally answered. “Barely, but we have to get her out of here. She’s starving and dehydrated.” He showed the blood trickling out of her ears. “And then there’s this.”

Niko placed a hand on the back of her head and closed his eyes. With one touch, he could assess a patient. “She’ll heal. It’s not fatal. It’s common in those gifted with the sight.”

The mention of her gift made him think of that horrid old cow who had tormented Ivy for weeks. “What about the Seer?”

Niko shook his head. “She escaped when we arrived. We’ll find her. We’ll finish this.” The ancient Greek tapped his arm and showed a great deal of concern. “Can you walk?”

“I’m fine.” What he didn’t want to admit was that he was overwhelmed by the urge to punch every male in the room for even looking at Ivy. If one of his brothers attempted to carry her, he would probably shift and lose total control. “I’ve got her.”

“Yes, I see that.” Niko sounded suspiciously relieved. He hesitated a moment before asking, “Is she your mate?”

Mad carefully placed her on the table so he could shift without harming her. Whatever doubts he had harbored about the blood magic between them making their bond false had fled within moments of meeting her. Even now, his heart raced and a comforting warmth spread through his body, the heat of it making his toes tingle. “Yes.”

“So you’ve claimed her then?” In their world, only an act of completed intercourse could seal the mate bond.

He frowned at the alchemist. “Are you serious? Have you seen this shithole we’ve been stuck in for the last two weeks? She’s been here longer than that. When it’s time for me to take her as my mate, it will be done properly—and on
her
terms.”

Stretching his aching neck, Mad embraced that primal part of him and unleashed his dragon. Wings folded, he bent down, scooped Ivy up and held her close. Surrounded by his brothers, he left the prison and leaped into the dark night, taking flight and heading for the nearby airfield where Niko had a private jet waiting for them.

Something about his short conversation with Ivy’s tribe mate and elder unsettled him. Suddenly he feared that his brothers hadn’t simply been delayed in finding them. The idea that Niko and Ignatius’s desires might mirror those of the Knights sent a chill down his spine. Even as he ran Ivy out of that prison, he feared she was now in far more danger than he had ever imagined.

I
vy’s eyes fluttered open. Her vision came into focus but she blinked with confusion as she stared at a coffered ceiling. After weeks of waking up to the dirty, cracked ceiling of her prison cell, the gleaming and beautifully carved wooden panels above her were something of a shock.
Am I hallucinating?

A ridiculously loud snore ripped through the stillness. A slow smile curved her mouth. It was a sound she had come to appreciate, and one that instantly set her at ease. Very carefully, she rolled onto her side and discovered the relaxed and ever so handsome face of her Beast. Content to simply stare at the hard angle of his jaw, she breathed in the clean scent of him and tried to make sense of her jumbled thoughts.

Flashes of memories teased her. After Mad had been tranquilized, she had desperately tried to protect him and the secrets he carried. The Seer had been surprisingly powerful that night, or perhaps she had simply been too weak to fight her. That evil hag had been so intent on forcing her to connect with Mad, but Ivy had done everything possible to keep him contained behind a wall the Mind Miner couldn’t penetrate.

And it had pissed off the Knight’s psychic weapon so badly. Ivy didn’t think she had ever experienced pain like that. The unceasing mental assault felt like thousands of red-hot needles were piercing her brain, jamming in deep and wiggling around until she just wanted to die. Even so, she had soldiered on, certain Mad would have done the same thing for her if the roles had been reversed.

Despite being locked away in that dreamscape she had created for him, Ivy had been able to feel Mad’s guilt and worry. With all the drugs pumping through his system, he could have died from an overdose or been seriously injured, but she was his only concern.
Me.

“Yes. You.” His gruff voice surprised her. When his dark eyelashes finally parted, his green eyes were damned near sparkling with mischief. “Your thoughts are loud this morning.”

Her belly swooped at the sight of his playful grin. “Wait. You can
hear
me?”

“It started when we were flying away from the prison.” Mad placed his big hand against her cheek and ran his thumb along her skin, the very touch of him making her tingle in all the right places. “I’m told it happens when mates share a powerful psychic connection. I suppose the trauma of that night had something to do with awakening it.”

“I’m not sure I’m liking this new development. What about privacy?”

He laughed. “Are you afraid I’ll hear you calling me names when I do something to annoy you?”

“Maybe.” Thinking of her privacy, Ivy suddenly realized she was wearing a man’s T-shirt and baggy boxer briefs. “Um…Mad?”

As if reading her mind—and maybe he was—he hastily explained. “I took you into the shower with me when we arrived here. I made sure no one else saw you. I wouldn’t allow that.” There was no mistaking the possessive edge in his voice. “You needed to have all that dirt and blood washed off of you. I wanted you to be comfortable while you rested.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you.” After sharing a prison cell for twelve days, she figured there weren’t many secrets left between them. She swallowed as her stomach wobbled with a primal frisson of excitement at the idea of Mad’s soapy hands running all over her naked flesh. If only she had been awake to enjoy the experience! Instead, she had been passed out for her rescue and missed meeting the other dragons and—

“Wait.” She seized on what he had said a few seconds earlier. “Flying? We flew out of the prison? I missed something that amazing?”

“You’re out of that prison now. You’re safe with me. Amazing is just beginning for us.” Mad threaded his fingers through her hair and dipped his head. His soft lips brushed against hers. Drawing back, he rubbed the tips of their noses together. “We’re going to do a lot of flying together.”

Ivy understood he wasn’t just talking about flying of the winged variety, and she blushed. She would never be able to explain the intense feelings she felt toward this man, but she trusted they were right and simply meant to be. But there were so many questions that needed answers.

“So ask them,” Mad prompted. “We’re out of that prison and away from the Seer. We can be open with each other now.”

She frowned and playfully thumped his bare shoulder. “Okay. No more listening in on my thoughts. I’ve had just about enough of that to last a lifetime.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” He pushed up on his elbow and rested his head on his palm. The white sheet that had been covering most of his body slipped down to his waist and revealed a tantalizing swath of tattooed skin and his unbelievably toned muscles. “What do you want to know, Ivy?”

“What happened after I passed out in that prison cell?”

“The rescue squad arrived.” He trailed his finger along the shell of her ear. “Ignatius, Stig, Niko, and Griff stormed the prison, killed the Knights there, and extricated us.”

“And the Seer?”

“She escaped, probably with some of the Knights. We’ll find her eventually.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you mean
I’ll
find her eventually.”

To his credit, Mad didn’t lie to her. “It’s likely that you’ll be the one who helps us track her down, but I won’t allow them to ask that of you until you’re healthy. It’s only been four days—”

Her eyes widened. “Four days! I’ve been asleep here for four days?”

“You needed to heal and to rest. Niko had you hooked up to IVs to treat your dehydration and malnutrition. Since you’re like us, he was able to give you one of his concoctions to speed up the healing process. There was something else to make sure you didn’t dream.”

“Really? There are drugs that do that?”

“Knowing Niko? It was probably some sort of old-school potion he cooked up in that lab of his. You’ll have to ask him later. I’m sure he’d be happy to explain it to you.” Mad played with her hair, the action so familiar and comforting. “He’s so thrilled to have you back in his life. You’re a very close relation to him so he feels a strong kinship toward you.”

“Hold on.” Ivy clasped his thick wrist. “Back up a bit.
Back in his life?
” The corners of his mouth tightened, and she dropped his wrist. Sitting up, she poked his sculpted chest. “That feeling I had that we knew each other isn’t just because of the dreams, is it, Mad?”

He sat up and shoved a pillow behind his back, cushioning it from the ornate wooden headboard. “I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t risk it back at the prison.”

“We aren’t in the prison anymore. You said you wanted only the truth between us so let’s hear it. When did we meet before this whole captivity and shared dreams thing?”

“When you were a baby,” he answered and reached for her hand, interlacing their fingers. “I was there when your mother and father were killed.”

Ivy felt like the world was tilting and she might have even fallen off the bed if Mad’s steely arms hadn’t wrapped around her. “Did the dragons kill them?”

“No.” There was no faking his aghast expression. She relaxed a bit, knowing that he was being truthful. Mad dragged her onto his lap and held her there. “Did you know they were dead?”

“Mom and Dad said my biological parents were killed in a car accident shortly after I was born. They didn’t know anything about my birth parents. When I turned eighteen, we tried to track them down, but the adoption agency had closed and the records had been destroyed accidentally.”

“There never were any records, Ivy. Whatever was necessary to make the adoption legal was manufactured by Niko and Ignatius. After it was all safely done, they destroyed the evidence to protect you.”

She let that sink in for a moment before asking, “Did you know my parents—my biological parents—very well?”

“No,” he said. “To be honest, I was their jailer for a short period of time.”

She didn’t know what to say to that revelation. Finally, she managed one word. “Why?”

“Your mother was a dragon. Do you remember the golden dragon you described from your dream?” When she nodded, he continued. “That was Niko. He’s the closest blood kin you have left. Your mother was a direct descendant of his sister.”

“And my father? He was human?”

“Yes, but he was also a Knight.”

Her chest grew painfully tight. Suddenly,
everything
made sense. “So you’re telling me my parents were a Romeo and Juliet situation?”

“Basically,” he agreed.

Desperate for information, she touched his jaw. “Tell me about them.”

His gaze softened with sympathy. Could he feel the gaping, empty hole within her that the mystery of her biological parents had left behind? “Your mother’s name was Phoebe Drakon. Your father was Yves Cole. He was descended straight from the brother of the woman you saw murdered.”

“Caius?” She remembered the name.

“Yes.” His thumb glided along her lower lip. “Your birth name was Ivy Cole.”

“So I’m part of that first family you talked about the night you were thrown into my cell?”

“Yes.”

“And that means the Seer—”

“Is probably your aunt or grandmother,” he confirmed. “They’re just as secretive about their degrees of relation, births, and deaths as we are. Either way, she is your family.”

“But she was so cruel to me,” Ivy said with a shiver.

“She hates you.” He didn’t mince words. “Your parents broke every rule in the book.”

“How did they meet? Was my father young like me? Was my mother older like you?”

“Your mother was older than your father. She was nearly three hundred years old when they met. He was close to your age, maybe a year or two older. From what I was told, it was true love that brought them together.”

“Does that happen very often? I mean, humans and dragons?”

“It’s not common, but yes. It was only forbidden for Brothers of the Green Hide to take human lovers. Until recently,” he amended before caressing her back and continuing the tale. “Your father had been sent on an illegal raid of a dragon compound. Every dragon but your mother was killed, and she wounded your father badly but didn’t finish him off. Perhaps she recognized him as hers. Whatever the reason, she broke the rules, our covenants, and hid him away while he healed. They fell in love and carried on their secret affair for nearly seven years before you were conceived.”

Seven years? How difficult was it to hide an illicit affair like that? To know that the man you loved so very much was trying to kill your kind every time he was away from you?

“As you can imagine,” he continued, “the news didn’t go over well. Ignatius, our leader, told us to leave them alone. After losing his brother over a star-crossed love affair, he wasn’t going to get involved in breaking those two up or hurting the baby—you. When we got word that the Knights had tracked them down, we captured them first and brought them here to Niko’s estate for safekeeping.”

She glanced around the sumptuously decorated space. If this was just one bedroom in the house, she could only imagine the size of the estate. “Was I born here?”

“Yes.”

“In a cell?” she asked with dread.

“No, you were born in a room down the hall. Niko secured the space with technology and layers of magic. He’s extremely adept at that sort of thing.”

“What happened after I was born?”

“Your parents managed to overpower Niko while he was alone here at the estate and they escaped. The Knights caught up with them. They slaughtered your mother and captured your father.” He spared her the brutal details, and she was grateful for it. “We arrived too late to save him, but he made us swear we would protect you.”

“You were there when he died.”

“I held his hand as he took his last breath.”

Ivy understood then that her connection to Mad had started almost from the very moment of her birth. “You said he made us swear we would protect you, but he made
you
swear, didn’t he?”

Mad’s gaze drifted away from hers. He seemed to be recalling the memory and studying it. “Yes. I swore I would protect you.”

“I don’t pretend to know the first thing about dragons, Knights, magic, or supernatural forces, but what if that vow was more than just a simple vow?”

His arm drew her in a little closer. “It’s possible.”

“But if you promised to protect me, why was I sent away to live with humans?”

“Ignatius and Niko were adamant that you have a normal childhood. We faked your death and let the Knights believe they had killed the entire family. Ignatius found a suitable family—Susie and Miguel Morales—to raise you as a typical human child, and Niko treated you with his elixir to suppress your supernatural gifts.”

“An elixir? What is he, some sort of wizard?”

Mad snorted with amusement. “I dare you to call him that when you meet him. No,” he said with a laugh. “He’s what we call an alchemist. He’s a highly skilled scientist. Like Reynard, he has more degrees than you can count. Lately, he’s been focusing on biochemistry and genetics. God only knows what he’s cooking up in that lab of his.”

“But what did he cook up for me, Mad? What did he give me when I was a baby?” She had a bad feeling it was something dark and dangerous.

“You’ll have to ask him about all of the ingredients.” Mad hesitated before finally admitting, “My blood was in it.”

Speechless, Ivy just gawked at Madoc. “Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”

“I drank your blood?”

“It was the only way, Ivy.”

“It’s disgusting! It’s unsanitary. It’s dangerous!”

“This world of mine is a dangerous place. I was told the elixir he fed you was the only way to save you, Ivy. It was the one chance the Brotherhood had of giving you a happy and carefree childhood.” Hope glinted in his eyes. “Were you happy?”

Even though she was totally grossed out by the thought of having drunk his blood, she refused to lie to him. “Yes, Mad. I was so happy. My parents loved me so much. They were amazing, and they made sure I woke up every morning knowing how much they absolutely cherished me. Sure, I had weird dreams and the strange visions and the ability to see things, but overall my life is—was—really normal. Boring even,” she added, thinking of all the things he had told her.