Burned (Drake Security #5)

Chapter 17

Chapter

Seventeen

LORD

A lrick snores softly in my arms. In the two days we’ve spent basically locked in our hotel room, it’s a sound I’ve grown addicted to. His quiet breaths, his steady, even heartbeat, the sounds of his laughter and moans… they’ve all become part of me, as necessary as the fire in my veins and the air in my lungs.

I stroke his silky hair, my chest vibrating with my dragon’s purr. The room is saturated with our entwined scents and so is Alrick’s skin. The smell of flowers and ocean are still part of him, coded into his DNA like the color of his eyes, but they’re joined now by the scent of fire and longing and hope. He smells like home. He smells like mine .

From somewhere in the room, I can hear the faint sound of my phone buzzing. How it has any battery left after days of living under a pile of my clothes is beyond me. I haven’t even looked at it since I called Dahlia, but I know my brothers have kept trying to get a hold of me.

I wait for a fresh twist of guilt in my gut, but it doesn’t come. How can I feel shame for mating Alrick? Why should I regret lying to my brothers when it was the only path here, to this room in Paris, tangled up in bed with my mate?

I nuzzle the back of his neck, breathing his scent in deeply again and making another contented noise deep inside my chest.

I do have to talk to my brothers, and as much as I would love to stay right here forever, I know it’s about time to return home. But the dread that accompanied that thought two days ago is just as absent as my guilt. It won’t be simple or without complications, but Alrick will stay with me if I ask him to. We can have a life together. He can be my mate for real, not just in a too-brief fantasy. In order for any of that to happen though, I need to be honest with him. I just have to hope he won’t be too angry that I waited so long to tell him the truth.

The peaceful rise and fall of his back against my chest has my eyelids drooping, the warmth of his skin almost as perfect as the sun on my scales. I’ll join him for a nap and when we wake up, I’ll tell him everything. Then I’ll take him home and we can continue our little honeymoon locked in my hoard for the next fifty years or so, indulging in each other and forgetting the outside world exists.

A smile tugs at my lips and that warm thought follows me off to sleep.

Some time later, a thunderous pounding has me bolting upright in bed, pleasant dreams of flying with my mate on my back dissolving in an instant. My skin ripples with scales and flames flicker on my lips as I shake sleep from my brain and try to find the potential threat.

Thud, thud, thud .

Alrick jumps out of bed, on high alert just like I am, picking the lamp up off the nightstand and casting his gaze around the room.

“Enough’s enough, Lord. Open the fuck up.” Nico’s growling voice accompanies the next set of forceful knocks.

My heart rate slows, and my dragon stands down, but Alrick grips the lamp tighter, darting a look at me and then at the door.

“It’s my brothers,” I explain, giving him a grimace of apology. Meeting your boyfriend’s family doesn’t usually happen when you’re naked and half-asleep.

Boyfriend. The word is all wrong, but it makes my chest warm anyway. Alrick’s battle-ready expression melts into a nervousness that’s so sweet I want to kiss it right off of his face.

“I can send them away,” I offer, dipping my voice low so my brothers won’t hear it through the distance and the door.

Before Alrick can answer though, the electronic chirp of the lock disengaging sounds through our suite.

“Pants on, gentleman.” Montrose’s voice rings out, followed by the stampeding sound of eight different sets of feet entering.

“Fuck,” I sigh.

Alrick takes a breath, straightens his shoulders, and sets a determined look on his face.

“I’m ready. Let’s do this.” He marches towards the door that separates us from the main living area, and I reach out to snag him by the arm to stop him.

I trail my gaze over him with a smirk. “I’d really rather not let all my brothers see what they’re missing out on.”

He looks down at himself and chuckles. “Oh. Right.”

“Oh please, no one is here to ogle your man,” Tino huffs.

“And we have a bit of a situation, so urgency is necessary,” Dempsey adds, speaking louder than my brother, like he’s not as confident that I’ll be able to hear him through the door.

“A situation?” I repeat, snatching my pants off of the floor next to the bed and stepping into them.

Alrick frowns and twists his hair into a knot. In nothing but a pair of jeans, his body is a scrapbook of our last two days together, healing scorch marks and love bites adorning his flesh. Just the sight of them makes me want to drag him back to bed and refresh each and every one before they can fade. But my brothers tracked me all the way to Paris, and it sounds like it wasn’t just to give me a hard time about going AWOL.

Once we’re decent, I pull open the door to find the living room of our suite has been invaded. Montrose is seated sideways in the overstuffed chair next to the couch, his legs slung over the arm while Tino stands behind it, his arms crossed and resting on the top of the chair. Hemingway and Dempsey are seated on the couch along with Arson, while Draydon stands a few feet away weighing a bronze statue in his hand. Nico leans against the back of the couch, facing us, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Beside him, his mate, Lake, is dressed like he just stepped off the catwalk rather than a ten-hour flight, tapping the toe of his red pumps against the marble floor and holding my cell phone in his hand.

Lake pulls his own phone out of his pocket and brings it to his ear. Less than a second later, mine buzzes in his other hand.

“Huh, look at that, it does work.”

Arson slings his arm over the back of the couch and turns to face us. He drags his gaze slowly over Alrick, a lascivious smirk forming on his lips.

“But how was he supposed to answer his phone when he was knot deep in his delicious mate?”

I growl and step in front of Alrick, even though I know my brother is just trying to get my goat. My dragon doesn’t want anyone ogling my Viking, even as a joke. The satisfying thought of plucking Arson’s eyes out for the offense makes me purr.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not his mate,” Alrick says.

I growl again. The urge to drag him back into the bedroom and knot him until there’s absolutely no confusion about what he is to me is so strong it physically hurts to resist it. I grind my teeth, and Draydon barks out a wolfish laugh.

“You smell like his mate.”

Through our bond, I can feel a twist of embarrassment and the heat of a blush rising in his cheeks.

“Not because you reek of sex,” Arson helpfully elaborates. “He means that we can all smell Lord’s fire on you.”

Alrick’s embarrassment turns into confusion. He looks at me and cocks his head.

“Do they mean your flames on my lips when we…” He darts a glance at my family out of the corner of his eye and cuts himself off.

“No, lovely.” Montrose gives him an indulgent smile like he’s talking to a small, somewhat stupid child. “We mean that we can smell Lord’s fire coursing through your veins. You might recall him breathing it into you while he knotted you within an inch of your life?”

My heart thunders and my breath comes out in fast, shallow pants. This isn’t how I was planning to tell Alrick. This isn’t how anyone should find out that they’re mated.

They all must see the bewilderment in his expression, because they exchange looks and then turn accusing glares on me. Beside me, I can feel Alrick’s mounting concern, no doubt fueled by the panic he can feel through our bond just as much as his own uncertainty about what they’re all saying.

“He didn’t…” he murmurs, looking at me. “Lord?”

My throat tightens.

“It was the only way to save your life,” I choke.

No one says a word. I can’t even hear any breathing coming from my meddling family. And Alrick simply stares at me, his expression blank in spite of the whirlwind of confused emotions picking up steam inside of him.

“But you said?—”

“I’m sorry.” I reach for him, but he pulls his hand back, his eyebrows knitting together and his forehead creasing.

“We’re… mates?” He’s still frowning as he tests the word on his tongue. Hearing him say it makes my heart leap. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why this whole lie about a healing potion and needing to get the antidote? What were we even doing in Scotland?”

“The rest of it was true. Mostly true, anyways. Your healing was helped along by the potions I gave you, although with my fire inside of you, you would have healed regardless. And we came so I could find a way to…” I glance at my brothers, then back to my mate, lowering my voice even though I know it’s useless with them all a foot away. “Sever our bond.”

Gasps and growls ring out around the room and a slice of pain lances through our bond.

“Why the fuck would you want to do that?” Nico rumbles.

“Is that even possible?” Dempsey asks, his voice full of more curiosity than judgment or horror.

Understanding seeps into Alrick’s expression though, and I can feel a sense of broken resignation pouring off of him. Unable to restrain myself another second, I pull my mate into my arms and nuzzle into the crook of his neck, squeezing him as tightly as I can and pouring every warm, happy, longing feeling I have into our bond.

“That was before, treasure. I was going to tell you, and I was going to beg you to stay, to be my mate, to let me spoil you and love you for the rest of our long, long lives.”

He trembles in my arms and squeezes me back just as tightly.

“You all know I love a good heartwarming moment, and I hate to break this up, but we do still have a situation,” Lake chimes in. “We didn’t come this far for the croissants, though we must get some before we go.”

“We’ll talk about this later?” I whisper, and my mate nods before we release each other and turn back to my family.

“Yes, what was so urgent that you needed to fly all the way here and barge into our hotel room? Is there a real emergency or is it just too foreign of a concept to any of you that I might want my privacy for a few weeks?” I huff.

“There’s very much an emergency,” Tino confirms.

“And you left the tiny tyrant in charge,” Montrose adds. That earns him the middle finger from Lake, and he blows a kiss in return.

“If I wasn’t in charge, half of you might already be dead,” Lake points out.

“What?” I bark.

Hem rolls his eyes. “He’s exaggerating.”

“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” My usually even tone is strained, which has all of my brothers and their mates eyeing me with surprise.

“Dragon slayers,” Dempsey says, and my blood runs cold.

ALRICK

My pulse thunders in my ears. I must have misheard them. They can’t have said what I think they did.

“Breathe, treasure.” Lord rubs my back soothingly and I try to do as he says, pulling oxygen into my constricting lungs.

Finding out that Lord and I are somehow already mates is enough of a mindfuck, I’m not sure I can handle this right now.

“Where?” I rasp. “Did they hurt you? One slice from a cursed blade will poison a dragon’s bloodstream. There’s no cure. Were any of you cut?” I look around the room frantically, terror swirling inside of me.

“They haven’t gotten that close. They have been testing our wards though,” Hemingway says.

“One of them came to my shop yesterday and told me that if we don’t give their brother back, they’ll torture us before they kill us.” Dempsey shudders as he relays the information and Hemingway roars, wrapping his arms around his small, fragile looking mate.

The man in the chair with the flowing red hair—Montrose, I believe—cocks his head and narrows his eyes at me.

“How do you know so much about a dragon hunter’s blade?”

I open and close my mouth, but I can’t quite form words to answer. This can’t be happening. How did they know? How did they find Lord’s family?

My mind floods with images, memories mixed with panicked predictions. Fire and blood, loud roars shaking the sky and pained shrieks following. The world quakes and the floor becomes unsteady under my feet. Is there an earthquake?

“Breathe,” Lord says again, his voice firm and grounding in my ear as he wraps his arms around me to hold me steady.

Oh, it’s not the world that’s shaking, it’s me.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” I gasp between ragged gulps of air.

“They won’t,” Lord growls, his voice full of certainty that I wish I could believe.

“You don’t understand. They won’t stop. Death before surrender, that’s what we were taught.”

“Lord.” One of his brothers, the one with the redheaded man beside him, cuts in. His voice is steady, but even I can hear the underlying fear in it. “What the fuck is going on?”