Dragon's Curse: A Dragon Shifter Romance (Dragon Guild Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  “Something like that, but don’t get any ideas into that lascivious head of yours, Mr. Dragon. I’m all business.”

  “Business, bah. You do realize that I don’t need you for this. It’s just a quick trip to find a shifter. I just wanted you along so that I could get into those pants of yours.”

  “They wouldn’t fit you. Besides, I’m not sure this trip will be so simple, Minach. After what happened to Kliev, anything could happen.”

  “Are you offering to protect me?” He issued her a wry grin. “You’re afraid something will happen to your favourite bastard, are you?”

  “Not quite,” she said earnestly. “I know full well that you can look after yourself. I’ve seen you and your Dragon take on multiple Forsaken and Lapsed at once. You’re…impressive.” Amara averted her eyes with the last word, not wanting him to read the genuine admiration on her features.

  “I’ve been waiting months to hear you say that,” he replied, thrusting out his chest like a peacock looking for a mate. “I knew you’d come round.”

  “Silly plonker,” she laughed, steering her eyes back to his face. “Now listen, there’s the small matter of how I’ll get there.”

  “Well, I suppose you can ride me for a few hours.”

  “Great, thank you.”

  “And after that I’ll take you to Cornwall.” Minach raised his eyebrows in quick succession, doing a somewhat impressive Groucho Marx impersonation. Cheeky monkey.

  Amara smiled. She loved his humour, much as she never admitted it in so many words. She loved, too, that he treated her like he treated everyone else. He didn’t care that she was another breed entirely, a creature deemed off limits to most of his kind. If anything, he seemed genuinely fond of her.

  Yet he’d never kissed her; never really tried anything. The most action she’d gotten out of him was his hand on her arm, and even that had been initiated with a certain respectful distance. She’d always gotten the impression that he respected the invisible boundaries that she’d long since erected around her body.

  Still, it was fun to flirt a little now and then.

  “Dirty Dragon,” she said. “Always throwing the innuendo about.”

  “I wouldn’t mind, you know,” he replied calmly.

  “Mind what?”

  “If you wanted to ride me. Either my face or my cock. I’d take either one, or both, even. I’m not fussy.” The right side of his mouth curled up in a sexy half-smile. Okay, that was a little beyond flirting. Whatever it was sent a frisson of pleasure down Amara’s belly to the place between her legs, reminding her that she too had unmet needs. Riding him would fulfill a fantasy that had stormed through her mind since almost their first meeting.

  But it would never happen, of course. That’s why they called it a fantasy. It was merely a fabrication of her mind, a tease. Nothing to do with grim reality.

  “That is the most unromantic proposition I’ve received in my entire life, Minach,” she scolded, much as his forwardness aroused her. It was a beautiful sensation, this, reminding her how alive her broken body was in spite of everything. She wanted him; she always had. But theirs was an impossible union, infected with complications. Their names may as well have been Montague and Capulet for all the barriers standing between them.

  “I’m not trying to be romantic,” he told her, leaning in close so that his delicious scent did that alluring thing that Dragon shifters’ aromas did, embracing her erogenous zones in its tendrils. “I’m trying to tell you that I want you, Amara. You must know that by now.”

  Yes, she knew. He wanted her body, just as she wanted his. Men were so simple-minded, wanting to fuck anything with breasts, so long as she was convenient. Well, she wasn’t here to be used for such a purpose. Perhaps if she were human she’d have given herself to him for a few hours of erotic pleasure. But there was too much at stake to take such a chance. She could destroy them both if she wasn’t careful.

  “You want a roll in the hay,” she chastised. “You want to fuck someone, without attachment or investment. I know how much you value your life of bachelorhood. Find yourself a hooker if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “What makes you think that’s all I want?” He looked almost hurt by her accusation, despite the fact that he probably deserved it. After all, this was a man who rambled on about how wonderful it was to live from day to day, free of the shackles of a mate. Why would he possibly want anything more than sex? He claimed to thrive on bachelorhood, solitude and freedom.

  “Because, Minach, you’ve never once shown that you truly care for me. You tolerate me better than you do most people, but that doesn’t exactly constitute the makings of a relationship. Besides which, you know what would happen if we got together.”

  “Oh yes, I know perfectly well. It would be eighteen or so hours of erotic bliss, and you would thank me for my intricate tongue work afterwards while smoking a cigarette.”

  “You’d be scolded by your Guild at best, expelled at worst. Tryst might find out, wherever she is, and she’d probably use it as an excuse to gather forces against the Dragons. She hates my kind and wants us to cease existing.”

  “Tryst can blow me,” Minach snarled. “Wait. No, she can’t. You can, however. I would welcome it with open arms and a very hard hard-on.”

  Amara sat back and crossed her arms. “Incorrigible,” she said.

  Minach leaned forward again, and once again his scent all but overwhelmed her. “Admit it. You want me, too.”

  “I tolerate you, just as you tolerate me.”

  The shifter slammed his back into the chair and crossed his arms over massive pectoral muscles. “Right then, Miss Grouch. Back to business. I will transport you to Cornwall on my back, no strings attached. How’s that?”

  “Even if I don’t give you my body?”

  “Even then. But for the record, I would absolutely take it if offered.”

  “Duly noted.” Amara smiled again. He was getting more comfortable with her. It was both a nice change and a frightening one to have Minach so easy around her that he could essentially declare his desire. Perhaps they were growing dangerously close.

  “Besides which,” Minach said as though reading her thoughts, “my Guild wouldn’t disown me. Lyre likes you too much. Lumen does, too. They’re the only ones who count.”

  Yes, but there is more. So much that you don’t know about, thought Amara. She didn’t dare say it; doing so would make it all too real.

  “Well, for now we need to focus on the Relic of Earth,” she said, “not on the suitability of a naked romp. It’s not going to happen, so you should get it out of your head right now.” Even if it’s never going to leave my own mind.

  “Right. There’s the matter of the damned Relic,” he said, clamping his jaw shut with the finality of her rejection. “Business over pleasure, as always. We’ll find the sodding thing, assemble the four and be done with stone-hunting forever. The Dragons will become powerful beyond imagining, and you will still refuse my advances despite all my newfound macho impressiveness.”

  “Yes, probably,” Amara sighed. Her mind was moving onto other matters, prying itself deliberately away from thoughts of his naked body.

  “What are you sighing about?”

  “Nothing, and everything. Just…the Dragons will grow more powerful, but I just wish we could help my people as well. I’d give anything to be able to bring them out of hiding and to show them a safer world.”

  “It will be safer once the Guild has the four Relics in our possession, Amara.”

  “There’s more, though,” she said, her voice all but breaking. “I…wish I could heal them.” It was herself she spoke of, of course. It was herself that she wanted to heal. Perhaps then she wouldn’t have to push him away.

  In a rare show of sympathy, Minach leaned forward and reached for her hands, which were sitting on the edge of the table. “I’m going to fight for that very thing, for your people. But especially for you,” he said, drawing her left palm to his li
ps to kiss.

  Amara suppressed a shudder of delight at his touch. This was a complete turnaround from his tone a minute earlier. Crude, flirtatious Minach had moved off, and soft, thoughtful Minach was letting his barriers down for a moment. This was the man who tempted her at times to fall in love.

  Arousal didn’t begin to describe the sensation of his lips on her flesh. It was all she could do not to reach for his shirt and tear it away from his massive, muscular body. She knew full well what lay beneath; the mountains of hard flesh that arched and angled their way over his torso. He was the most beautiful man in the world, and for too many reasons, she would never experience the full pleasure of him.

  “Thank you, Minach,” she said when he’d given her hand back. She wondered if he smelled her arousal on the air. Part of her hoped that he did, that he understood how he filled her with want, with deep, unsettled need.

  “No,” he said, staring deep into her eyes, his gaze taking stock of her soul. “Thank you, Amara.”

  Perhaps he knew after all.

  Comfort

  Amara slept in Minach’s bed that night, the Dragon shifter relegating himself to the couch in his best effort to emulate a gentleman. Of course, the distance he’d put between them was strategic and deliberate. Amara brought out the flirt in him. Not only that, but she aroused him beyond measure. But she also brought out the frustrating desire to improve himself as a man, which meant showing the Enlightened the respect that she deserved. Something about Amara prompted him to stand up straighter, to speak more softly. He wanted her to think well of him, to like him. Her opinion was more important to him than anyone else’s on earth.

  It wasn’t easy to relax, knowing that she was lying in a bed so close at hand. Part of him wanted to sneak into the bedroom, strip her naked, explore her with his mouth and feel the pulse of her orgasm against his tongue. He wanted to find his way inside that exquisite woman, to finally cure himself of the desire that had been eating away at him for too long.

  Much as he would have loved to take her in his arms and kiss her long and hard, he feared the consequences of doing so. For her, even more than for him. Oh, yes, his Guild would chastise him if he involved himself with such a being, but they’d eventually forgive him. He knew that they wanted his happiness above everything.

  But it was also the fact that she was fragile, while he was strong. Over the months since he’d met her he felt as though he’d watched her fade, her strength disappearing a little with each day that passed. Although she didn’t speak of it, she had altered, somehow, from the strong woman he met under Glastonbury Tor to a delicate piece of crystal. Precious, beautiful, endlessly valuable. If he bonded with her, he might break her into small pieces.

  Physically, if not mentally.

  Perhaps that was the real reason for her own hesitancy; a fear of shattering from the inside. Perhaps she knew how delicate she was.

  He lay staring up at his living room’s ceiling, aware that sleep might never come. It didn’t matter though; a restful night had never been an issue in all his life. Insomnia was his constant companion, his mind an enemy that seldom let him rest. Guilt washed through him nightly; guilt for what he’d done to Lyre, for how he treated people even now that the beast inside him had calmed a little. It had always seemed too late to properly make amends; he was a known bastard, and he would remain so until the end of his days, no doubt.

  He may as well own his reputation for snark and crabbiness.

  Maybe it was for the best that Amara had rejected him. The distance between them would give him an excuse to continue his quest to be the most disagreeable man in the universe. If she gave herself to him, if she caressed him, kissed him, held him, he would have no reason not to smile, not to let his icy exterior melt to nothingness. No reason to exude warmth and happiness. He would lose his whole bastard identity, and then what would be left? He’d become nothing more than a clone of his happy brother.

  Actually, that sounded pretty fucking good.

  “There are worse things you could be,” he mumbled to himself. “But it’ll never happen, so stop fantasizing. Think about something else, you fool.”

  The Dragon of Earth, Lumen had told him, lived near Land’s End, the westernmost tip of Cornwall. Minach had no idea what to expect when they arrived, and he and Amara needed to be prepared for some difficulties. The shifter might be hostile. On the other hand, he could very well be jovial and welcoming. Dragon shifters were known to be generally unpredictable. It was only through the camaraderie of the Guild and the careful hand with which their parents had raised them that he and Lyre had become friendly with other Dragon shifters—friendly being a relative term for Minach, of course.

  If he played his cards right, any Dragon shifter, friendly or otherwise, could probably be easily persuaded to join forces with him in tracking down the Relic of Earth. That was, as long as he was informed that he too would benefit from its discovery if he joined the Guild. Dragonkind was nothing if not greedy and ambitious. It was why creatures like Mardoc and Tryst were willing to ruin others’ lives for their own gain. Dragons, thought Minach, are arseholes.

  Around three a.m., after he’d contemplated his strategy for dealing with the mysterious Duncan over the course of a few hours, a light came on in the hallway. The soft, alluring tamping of bare feet against the wooden floor met his ears. A moment later, Amara was standing silhouetted in the doorway, her delicate legs bare, arousing and sensual. Damned beautiful woman, showing herself to him like that.

  “Can’t sleep?” Minach asked in a hoarse voice, his hands clasped behind his head to prop it up as he stared at her, his bright eyes flickering in the dark.

  “Not so much,” she replied, slipping into the room. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that he’d left out for her. Her smooth, pale legs seemed to go on forever, and Minach did his best to avoid staring at them as she slipped onto an armchair and tucked one under her backside. “I have a bad feeling about this trip,” she murmured. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, but it seemed that a new concern had unleashed itself on her mind.

  “Do you think we’ll be eaten by a big scary monster called Duncan?” he teased. “You do know that I’m a Dragon too, right?”

  She didn’t smile. “No. It’s something else entirely. I can’t put my finger on it, Minach—all I know is that it won’t be easy for us to get our hands on this Relic.”

  “Three Relics have been found thus far. People have died, Forsaken and shifters alike. Of course it won’t be simple. Nothing worth doing is easy. Or is it that nothing easy is worth doing?”

  “Yes, there’s a saying that goes something like that,” Amara replied.

  “You’re not easy, for example,” said Minach, locking her in his gaze, his eyes narrowing suggestively.

  “Are you saying I’m worth doing?” Her lips curved up at the corners. It seemed that his innuendo had set her a little at ease.

  “I suspect that you are, yes, and if you’re going to plant yourself in front of me in that half-naked sexy pose I’ve got to tell you, you’re pushing the limits of my gentlemanliness.”

  “But you are a well-behaved, respectful man of impeccable upbringing, so I know that I can trust you not to succumb to some barbaric urge to pounce on me.”

  “I’m a fucking monster,” he growled as he narrowed his eyes, only half joking. The truth was that his body was on fire, lit with a smouldering desire to taste every inch of her. On one thing he and his déor agreed in this moment: a mate would be a definite asset, and a beautiful one such as Amara, all the more so. “You’re fortunate that my human side is so accustomed to denying itself pleasure,” he added. “You’re just another wonderful thing that I won’t allow myself.”

  Amara clasped a hand around the ankle that was bent under her and squeezed. “I am fortunate then, I suppose, that you’re so well in control,” she said. “And unfortunate, all at once.”

  It was as close as she’d ever come to saying that she wanted him. Minach
was all too aware of her scent, even if she hadn’t stated it entirely clearly. Words didn’t much matter; her body told him she was as aroused as he was.

  No, he thought. I really will break you, or you’ll break me, which might even be worse. I’ve already ruined one brother, I can’t ruin a beautiful woman. If I hurt you—if I caused you pain—it would kill me.

  “You should try to get some sleep,” he said, peeling his eyes away from her. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

  Amara stood up and nodded. “And you should sleep too,” she said. But she didn’t leave. Instead, she slipped silently over to him and sat down on the edge of the couch. He drew his body away from hers, pressing against the back cushions to distance himself from her as much as possible. This closeness was dangerous, and he had a giant hard-on to prove it. A hard-on which he was currently concealing behind an inadequately thick throw pillow.

  Without a word, Amara lay down, her back facing his chest, and pressed herself into him. Slowly, as if through some will of its own, Minach’s arm reached around and held her to his chest, taking care to keep the cushion between them in an effort to conceal his arousal. Infuriating woman was pressing her arse back into his pelvis, almost like she wanted to confirm what she already knew.

  He was rock hard for her. He could have thrown her to the floor and taken her right there and then. If he were any less of a man, he might just have done it.

  “Amara…” he whispered.

  “Mmm?” She was already drifting off, sweet tired thing.

  “Nothing. Go to sleep.”

  “Mmm.”

  Journey

  In the morning, Minach managed by some miracle to climb off the couch without disturbing Amara’s rest. By the time she’d risen and dressed, he’d cooked them each a breakfast of eggs and toast, which they devoured before slipping up to the roof of the building. Neither spoke of the previous night, of the quiet intimacy that they’d shared. Better, Minach supposed, to pretend it never happened.