He gripped her thighs and turned and walked with her toward the bed where they tumbled down onto together and he trailed kisses from her neck all the way down to her breasts. He clutched them and pulled them free from her top and nuzzled his head into them, before he reached down and hooked his hand into her panties. She could feel his fire. He was so hot, and she could see something different in his eyes. His whole aura was changing, and she was sure the dragon was lurking right there beneath the surface of his skin.

  When he removed her underwear and pulled them off over her feet and gripped onto her legs, he began to lick and kiss down her thighs, onto the inside and up to her sweetest spot. He pulled her to the edge of the bed and held onto her as his tongue flickered up and down her pussy sending her whole body convulsing and her hip bucking up to meet his mouth. His tongue was hot and wet, and with each lick and suck he sent ripples of ecstasy right the way up the entire length of her spine.

  She grabbed onto the bedsheets and gripped them, crunching them between her fingers as he pushed his powerful tongue inside of her. In and out, again and again. She gasped and bucked her hips, meeting his mouth with her pussy as he ate her hungrily and sent her towering over the edge into the most intense orgasm of her life.

  She moaned and writhed in the bed, but he didn’t let her rest for long. Before she knew what was happening he had taken hold of her wrists and was pinning her back into the pillows with one hand, whilst with the other he took hold of his incredibly powerful cock and pushed it deep inside of her. The sensation was almost too much for her to take, and as he fucked her deep and slow she felt something transfer into her… it was as if she had some of his fire inside of her now; as if her eyes would be reflecting the same flames as he did.

  Her dragon.

  She felt the power surge through him as his thighs tensed and he bore down on her harder, he was so powerful as he came that it sent her into climax once more and they came together as he spilled his seed inside of her and they were joined for all time.

  They collapsed down next to each other, a mess of lust, love and pleasure, and Aubrey looked up at him, unable to believe how lucky she was.

  He had come into her life and flipped it upside down in the best possible way. She was with him now, forever.

  “This is so meant to be,” she whispered when she finally got her breath back.

  Carter kissed her again and wrapped his hands up in her hair.

  “I’ve waited so long for you,” he said. “And I’m never letting you go.”

  She smiled and buried her head into his chest. Beneath his skin, she could hear his heart beating, strong and hard, like the dragon he was.

  She closed her eyes and felt all of her troubles begin to fall away, all that mattered, in that moment, was her and Carter. She loved him so much, and she couldn’t wait to see where they would go next.

  It was the best feeling she had ever known.

  16.

  Waking up with her dragon beside her again was the best feeling. She felt so safe and protected, and knowing now what he was… meant that she was even safer than she ever could have imagined.

  She rolled over and stared at him, he was still sleeping soundly, and he looked so peaceful. It was hard to imagine that somewhere within him there was a terrifying creature that could rip loose and cause so much damage.

  She reached up and stroked his face, before she was sure she heard the sound of something dropping through the front door.

  She furrowed her brow and sat up.

  Weird, she thought, as she climbed out of bed and tiptoed down the hall and toward her front door.

  The mailboxes were downstairs in the lobby, so for someone to put something through was a rare occurrence.

  She stopped and looked down at the small piece of paper that was lying on the mat, and she reached down and picked it up. It was a plain sheet of A4 that had been folded down the center, shielding what was inside.

  She opened it and stared, and for a moment she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing… but the more the words came into focus, the more her hands began to tremble and she felt the tears prick the corner of her eyes.

  She swallowed and tried to steady herself against the wall of the hallway, before she staggered back through to the bedroom, shaking, and completely confused.

  “Carter…” she said, barely able to speak. “Carter…”

  He rolled over in bed and stretched, and she saw how he reached for her and then sat upright instantly when he realized she wasn’t there.

  “Hey,” he said, bleary eyed. “What you doing over there? Come here…”

  She shook her head.

  She was crying hard now, and the tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Oh my god, Aubrey?” he said as he clambered out of bed and came to her.

  She stepped back and put her arm up between them as a shield.

  “Explain this…” she said, and she threw the piece of paper at him. “Is this true?”

  She watched as his eyes scanned the page, they darted from right to left, taking it all in, and he looked up at her, stunned, but not shocked and he faltered.

  On the paper that had been put under her door was the image of a dragon… and beneath it someone had simply scrawled…

  DON’T TRUST HIM. HIS KIND KILLED YOUR FATHER.

  “Aubrey,” he said as he took a step toward her. But the look on his face told her all she needed to know.

  “You knew this… all this time?” she stammered.

  “No…No..” he tried to speak but she was walking away. She couldn’t and wouldn’t listen to his excuses.

  He wasn’t shocked or surprised by this… and he wasn’t telling her it wasn’t true.

  “You let me sit there and pour my heart out… pretending you cared, and all this time it was your pack of fucking dragons that killed my father?”

  She was so incensed that she picked up the closest thing to her and sent it hurtling at the wall. A glass, which smashed on the other side of the room.

  Carter tried to come closer, to calm her, but she was too upset, and she fell to the floor and sobbed.

  “Just leave,” she cried. “I never should have got involved with you.”

  Carter took a step back and looked as if she had punched him in the stomach. And then he gathered up his clothes and went for the door.

  “Aubrey…” he said as he stood there, slipping his jeans and t-shirt on and reaching for the door handle. “This isn’t what you think.”

  “It seems pretty clear to me,” she said. “Get out.”

  She couldn’t look as the door opened and closed and he walked out of her life. And she couldn’t look at the piece of paper than had come and destroyed them either.

  She had worked so hard at letting him in, she had fallen for him, and now this? It had all been for nothing.

  A fire…

  Dragons…

  Of course, they had had something to do with it.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes and curled up on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest.

  She had never been this low… and she only had him to blame.

  17.

  The next day, after a fretful twenty-four hours, Carter walked along Main Street with his head in his hands and a fire raging inside of him. It had to be the wolves… but why? In the aftermath of their love, he and Aubrey could barely take their eyes off each other, drinking each other in and wishing they could stay in bed forever. And now, only a day later, it had all been destroyed.

  He was so full of anger, and he made his way toward the club, to collect some paperwork, anything to help take his mind off this.

  He walked up the steps to the club and he pushed the door open, showing the big, red curtains that were draped over the interior entryway. They were ruffled slightly as if they had recently been disturbed, and Carter paused for a moment and waited, trying to listen to hear if any sounds were coming from deep inside.

  There was something about the place that didn’t feel right, and he sniffed the air.

  He wanted to tell himself that everything was all right, but the truth was, he had the feeling that it wasn’t.

  Something had happened there… it reeked of something evil.

  He stepped forward silently, barely daring to let his feet touch the ground as he went. He moved stealthily and held his breath so that any slight sound would find him instead of him drowning it out.

  He could sense a change in energy around the place, and he could smell something too… something dark and menacing. His dragon was stirring within him as if he knew there was danger lurking around the corner, and somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he felt as if he could see something, almost like a premonition. He caught flashes of a man in pain, he heard a scream, and he felt a stab on the side of his throat…

  He reached up and held onto it, trying to quell the sensation that he was trying to stop his jugular from gushing blood.

  He gasped and it brought him back to the here and now. He didn’t know what had just happened, but it was if he had either seen into the future or experienced a memory from someone else’s past… and it hadn’t been good. It was as if he had been attacked as if someone had stabbed him in the neck.

  He swallowed and looked up and around at the ceiling, making sure he had covered every angle of the entryway. He knew there was something bad inside the main body of the club, he could smell it in the air, and he felt it all over him.

  He swallowed hard, and he took a step toward the red, long velvet curtains.

  He felt no fear as he approached, but his sense of danger was on high alert. He knew something was wrong… something terrible.

  He crept in slowly, moving into the main body of the club, barely daring to breathe and keeping his eyes wide and alert, scanning each corner and upstairs to the balcony and the third floor beyond.

  He waited and wanted to call out, but he didn’t dare. Most of the lights were off, apart from a couple of low ones that were shining around the bar area and high on the ceiling, which seemed to be a lifetime above.

  He turned around slowly on the spot and closed his eyes. His dragon senses were firing through him and he knew there was someone else in there with him. He couldn’t just feel them, he could smell them. It was an awful scent, one of raw meat and bone… it reminded him of death. He swallowed and opened his eyes.

  From above, somewhere high, he heard a clatter and a light fixture fell to the ground next to him. He jumped out of the way just in time as it crashed and smashed into a thousand pieces right next to his feet. His eyes shot up to the eaves, looking around the very top of the building and trying to see what had happened.

  He heard footsteps and someone running high up on the third floor, and even though he wanted to turn into his dragon, his instinct was just to run and catch whoever was up there. He sprinted up the stairs, two at a time, as he pulled his clothes from his back and kicked off his boots. As he got higher and higher into the building, the scent got stronger, and it wasn’t until he was at the very top right near the entrance to his office that he stopped and turned around. His chest was bare, and his jeans undone, ready to rip out of them and turn into the dragon alpha that was raging away inside.

  And then he smelled something else. He felt the danger in the air, the sense that he had to protect.

  It was her…

  “Carter!” Aubrey’s voice pierced through the darkness before a horrific scream followed and cut through the air like a knife.

  “No!” he shouted as he dove toward the balcony and gripped it, looking over to the center of the dancefloor.

  It was as if it were happening in slow motion, and when he saw her move into the light in the center of the room, his heart both sang and sank. She looked roughed up, as if she had been dragged from her bed, her face was pale and her hair was mussed up, she looked terrified and he could hear the thump of her heart. She was afraid and it killed him. And that was when he saw a cold-looking, grey arm clutched around her neck.

  He was so far away from her, his heart sank.

  What the hell was that thing that had her…? And how had it brought her here? It was in the shadows and he couldn’t see its face… but it looked human from where he was standing, but it certainly didn’t smell that way.

  “Aubrey,” he called out sternly. “It’s okay… stay calm.”

  She sobbed and the hand around her throat gripped her tighter and he saw her tremble.

  “Carter…” she sobbed, her knees shaking.

  He was aware of something up on the third floor with him too, and he knew there was only one thing for it, he was going to have to shift. If he didn’t, who knows what would happen to either of them.

  He heard the sound of nails dragging down something behind him as if they were cutting through the glass of the office window, and he went to spin around quickly but he was knocked off his feet, a heavy and hard object hitting him smack in the face.

  “Carter!” Aubrey’s terrified voice rang out from below and he moaned as he tried to get back to his feet, his mouth streaming with blood. There was a hiss behind him, like a cold wind, and he rolled to move out of the way, his dragon senses kicking in. Whatever was stalking him was dark and malevolent, and the stink of it was heavy in the air.

  He growled as he tried to find his energy to shift, but he was winded and the blood pouring from his mouth was making it hard to focus. He spat out as much as he could onto the ground and then he turned with his fists held up, ready to fight in his human form, looking around to try and see what had attacked him.

  He edged toward the balcony ledge and peered over, making sure that Aubrey was okay. She was still standing in the center of the dancefloor and the dead looking arm was clamped around her neck… but whoever it belonged to was still hiding in the shadows.

  Suddenly, through the sound system, a piercing screech rang out all around them before a voice cut through and began to laugh.

  Carter covered his ears, his dragon getting even more enraged as it tried to fight its way to the surface.

  “Little Lone Reach…,” the voice said. “Who would ever think there was so much bad hiding in plain sight…” he cackled, and it sent a shiver right down Carter’s spine.

  “The wolves blame you still… for the fire…,” the voice said coldly. “And it’s true isn’t it… you’re all to blame for the death of this lovely lady’s dear old dad. Now another man from town is missing… how will you cover over this one?”

  Carter’s ears were ringing, and he snarled.

  “My clan had nothing to do with that,” he said. “Something evil started that fire… it wasn’t dragon fire… it was dark magic.”

  He could hear Aubrey sobbing and he wanted to go to her. He could only imagine what she was thinking with hearing someone say those words. She would be thinking he had held back from her information about her father. The idea that she could possibly think his clan had something to do with his death was devastating. He had to make her listen to the truth.

  “Don’t listen to him Aubrey!” Carter called. “This is all a trick! He’s lying!”

  The cackle rang out around the room, the stereo system blasting it out and the floor of the club rumbling beneath them. Carter covered his ears as the creature began to screech through the sound system again, and even over it all he was sure his instinct was picking up on Aubrey’s sobs. All he wanted was to go to her, to sweep her up in his arms and to protect her.

  “His father and the rest of the dragons killed your father Aubrey,” the voice said. “They wanted to destroy the wolves, so they were the most powerful and in doing so they killed the most important man in your life…”

  “LIES!” Carter snarled. “IT’S ALL LIES! My kind would never do that Aubrey! It’s something we have always been blamed for, but something else started that fire. And I don’t know how but I will prove it to you. Listen to me Aubrey, I love you! Don’t listen to a word this thing says!

  She sobbed and wailed, and suddenly, the shaking of the building and the noise from the speakers quieted. Carter took the opportunity to run from his point by the balcony and dive toward his office. As he moved, he felt the energy and rage burst out of him and his skin tore open and scales sprang up in its place. He roared as the dragon took over his body, as his face elongated, and his nails split to reveal claws. His body grew and grew in size, and when he was fully changed, he turned and looked around the room and screamed, a dragon’s roar cutting through the darkness and lighting the way with a burst of fire.

  He felt the energy in the room shift. Whatever had been hiding was afraid, and he heard Aubrey scream again before he climbed up and over the balcony and began to scale down the walls, his huge dragon frame defying gravity as he clung on sideways until he reached the ground.

  When he got to the dancefloor, he could see that the room was clear, except for Aubrey. She was standing in the center of the room, looking up at him, and her eyes were ablaze with fire. Where the beautiful blue had once been was now engorged with flames, and his heart swelled for her. She truly was a part of him now… She was carrying his dragon fire around inside of her and when he was in his dragon form, she was reflecting his power within her.

  The creature that had been holding onto her, keeping her captive had vanished, and she reached up and touched her neck, wrapping both her hands around her throat as if she felt shocked to find the arm had gone. She turned and looked over her shoulder and nervously looked back to Carter the dragon, before she stepped back nervously.

  Carter bowed his head for her and pressed his chin against the ground, breathing softly.

  The danger had gone; now he was the one she would be afraid of. And she had to believe him, the creature had been lying. Now he was going to have to show her that, even as a dragon, he was a gentle giant.

  18.

  Aubrey was still trembling, but the creature that had taken her and held her against her will and planted her in the club as bait was gone. Now it was just her and Carter. The man she loved, but the man who also could have had something to do with her father’s death.