
Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedications

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

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About The Author

Other books by Carole Mortimer
Dragon Hearts 1

NATHANIEL

By

Carole Mortimer

USA Today Bestselling Author
COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2017 Carole Mortimer

Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper Designs

Editor: Linda Ingmanson

Formatter: Matthew Mortimer

ISBN: 978-1-910597-55-2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved.
DEDICATIONS

My Wonderful Family
Chapter 1

"You're trespassing on private property."

Chloe was already slightly breathless from her trek up the Welsh mountainside, but the sound of that deep-molasses-over-gravel voice from behind her was enough to make her even more so. It made her heart beat faster and louder too.

Besides, she already knew she was trespassing. How could she not when there were so many signs of "Private Property, Keep Out" at the bottom of the mountain? Signs she had deliberately chosen to ignore.

"Did you hear me?" the man behind her persisted when she gave no response to his comment, either verbally or physically.

Apart from losing her breath and having heart palpitations, that is.

Chloe drew several deep breaths into those starved lungs, hoping her heart would take the hint and calm down too. She was a seasoned freelance reporter, for goodness' sake, so it was hardly the first time she had ventured somewhere she knew she wasn't meant to be.

"You aren't allowed up here." This time, the growl was accompanied by a large hand—a very large and very warm hand—being placed on her arm to enable the man to spin her round to face him.

Oh my God...

If Chloe had thought she was breathless before, then looking up—and up—at the dark-haired man who had accosted her succeeded in knocking every last bit of air from her lungs. The heat of his hand on her arm sent tingles down to her hand and through the rest of her body, and it took her several seconds to recover her wits enough to take in exactly what she was looking at.

This man was an alpha alpha. His powerfully arresting face almost looked as if it were carved out of honeyed granite: high cheekbones, a sharp blade of a nose, a sculpted and unsmiling mouth, and a square and stubborn jaw. She couldn't tell what color his eyes were because he was wearing wraparound black sunglasses.

At five feet six inches tall, Chloe had always considered herself to be above average in height, but this man towered over her by at least a foot. He wasn't only tall but seriously muscled. He kept his dark hair short. His black T-shirt looked as if it were painted onto his wide shoulders, muscular chest, and tapered waist. Black jeans molded to his powerful thighs and long legs. To complete the seriously badass outfit, he was wearing black biker boots.

His clothing indicated he might be in the military. He was certainly a warrior of some kind.

A warrior?

What the hell...?

This was the twenty-first century. There were no such things as warriors anymore. Soldiers, some of them exceptional, but not warriors. Besides, as Chloe knew only too well from the past couple of months of dealing with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, most men were assholes.

Also, the chatter of the other guests at the inn she was staying at in the village, of the late-night comings and goings at the castle, said this man was more likely to be a crook than he was a warrior.

Chloe had to give a shake of her head to clear it of the effect of his touch and that overwhelming masculinity when his hand dropped away from her arm. She was here to sniff out a story, if there was one, not to be attracted to one of the men she was pretty sure was going to feature very prominently in that story.

She had come on holiday alone to the Welsh mountains, when her unreliable journalist boyfriend phoned her at the last minute to tell her he was too busy working on a story to go with her. Her suitcase was already packed, the car full of fuel and ready to go, so Chloe got in her car and went, vowing never to date another fellow journalist again.

Within a day of her arrival in North Wales, she had gone for a hike, and literally walked out of some trees into the side of a castle that wasn't featured on any of the numerous maps of the area she had brought with her. Not the ruins of a castle, but a tall and imposing gray stone medieval monstrosity, with turrets and extra wings added on to it.

Her curiosity piqued, Chloe had returned to the inn and started asking questions.

The answers had been interesting.

It might not be on any of the maps, but the locals knew the castle was there. They called it Pendragon Castle. Chloe wasn't hot on history, or fairy tales either, come to that, but she was pretty sure that in the films and television series she had seen featuring the legend of King Arthur, he was supposed to have been the son of Uther Pendragon.

The gossip surrounding the half dozen or so men who lived in the castle, and who were rumored to be the last surviving members of the original family, was even more intriguing.

The men were all of a similar age, possibly their midthirties. All of them were reputed to be tall and imposing—and Chloe now knew firsthand just how imposing.

The locals admitted none of the men worked in the area.

Nor did they socialize locally.

None of them were married either, although occasionally a local woman or two had been known to...visit for a day, possibly two. This last was confided with a knowing wink.

Some of Chloe's fellow guests at the inn were as interested in the castle as she was.

They spoke of seeing bright lights up on the mountain a couple of nights ago. Of helicopters or some other sort of small aircraft landing. Weirdest of all, one couple said they had heard roars reverberating down the mountain, much like the sound of a wild animal—a large wild animal—in pain.

Until that last comment, Chloe had thought perhaps she'd stumbled upon a gang of drug smugglers. The remote and unlisted castle in the rugged Welsh mountains was, she thought, a perfect place to receive their drug shipments. Or possibly illegal firearms and other weapons, now she had seen this man's appearance.

The roars of a wild animal didn't quite fit in with that conclusion. Unless they had some seriously big guard dogs up here? If that was the case, then Chloe was more convinced than ever these men had something to hide. Something she intended knowing, and exposing, if she could.

"Are you deaf or just stupid?" the man demanded impatiently at her lengthy silence.

Chloe certainly wasn't deaf. She could hear what he was saying well enough. But now that she thought about it, the fact she hadn't told anyone where she was going today, and she had now been caught intruding on this man's property—this angry man's property—told her she might be guilty of a little of the latter.

Maybe more than a little, she acknowledged with an inner wince. If the men living in the castle were drug or arms dealers, then by coming up here alone, she could have placed herself in danger.

"I'm neither of those things." She finally answered his accusation lightly, although she couldn't quite manage a smile to go with that lightness. She didn't enjoy being called stupid. Or knowing, on this occasion, the accusation had merit. "I'm merely a lost tourist who was going to knock on the door of your castle to see if you could point me back in the direction of the village."

Mine.

The word roared into Nathaniel's skull with the force of a sledgehammer the moment the woman spoke. So loud and so powerfully, he almost staggered under the force of it.

What the hell—?

"Are you okay?" The redhead looked concerned, telling Nathaniel he must have gone a little pale. Certainly something had alerted her to the fact he was far from happy.

Nathaniel wasn't sure what he was at the moment. Unhappy didn't begin to cover it. He was slightly dazed, a little confused at the instant effect this woman had on him, and pissed because he felt either of those things.

Nor did he believe her story about being lost.

Mainly because he had seen this same red-haired woman wandering about on their mountain two days ago. He had stood and observed her from the top of one of the turrets of the castle.

He had given her the benefit of the doubt that last time and chosen not to bring her to the attention of his brother. Deryk's temper was...volcanic at the moment. He was more likely to act first and ask questions later.

Having this woman come here for a second time, quite deliberately, meant Nathaniel wouldn't be able to keep this from Deryk a second time.

Nathaniel's heightened senses had warned him of her presence the moment she stepped foot on their mountain today. He had also tracked her every purposeful step as she made her way stealthily toward the castle using the cover of the trees to hide her approach. That stealth and purpose as she skulked about the perimeter of the castle walls, obviously looking for a way in, meant Nathaniel had no choice this time but to confront her. Before Deryk did.

Mine, that voice roared again inside his head.

No, she's fucking not, Nathaniel mentally roared right back.

There was no doubting this woman was absolutely beautiful. Probably aged in her mid-twenties, she had long, straight hair that gleamed with a spectrum of colors from russet to gold. Her eyes were the clear blue of a mountain lake on a summer day, and her complexion creamy smooth. She also had full breasts—which Nathaniel certainly approved of—a slender waist and curvy hips. All shown to advantage in a red T-shirt and fitted jeans.

Yes, she was stunningly beautiful, and the way she faced him so unflinchingly told him she also had balls. Nathaniel was well aware of how intimidating his height and size could be. But neither her beauty nor her courage changed the fact she had to leave, and sooner rather than later. He also needed to make it clear she should never return.

There was only him and Deryk in residence right now. Deryk being Deryk, suspicious bastard that he was, would have dragged her inside the castle by now, so fast that her feet wouldn't have touched the ground, until she was seated in front of him and he demanded she answer his questions.

Deryk's mood had become unstable of late, and their brother Dylan had been staying here, keeping an eye on him originally. But Dylan had been needed elsewhere, and Nathaniel had come back to take his place. If Deryk had been the one to find this woman on their property, it was anyone's guess what her fate would have been. Deryk would have either fucked or killed her by now. Or both.

"This is private property," Nathaniel bit out.

"I think I got that." Her straight white teeth showed in a friendly smile. "Could I possibly have a glass of water? It's really hot today, and I forgot to bring a drink with me."

A liar as well as beautiful, Nathaniel acknowledged with a scowl, knowing the water was merely a ruse to get inside the castle. He despised liars.

Mine.

Fuck off, Nathaniel instructed firmly.

Maybe he needed to get laid? It had been a few months since he and Deryk had shared the pretty blonde. All of them tended to get a little tense without a good fuck to relieve the tension every couple of weeks.

Mine.

"No," he answered that inner voice as well as the woman in front of him.

She blinked at his abruptness. "No?"

"Yes."

"Make your mind up, is it yes or no?" she teased.

Nathaniel frowned. This woman wouldn't be poking him with a verbal stick if she knew what he was. "It's get the hell off my property—now—and don't ever come back!"

Her eyes widened. "Are you threatening me?"

"Did it sound like a threat?"

"Yes."

"Then I guess that's what it is." He nodded abruptly before turning on his heel and striding away, the wild clamoring inside him urging him to return. It became more and more frantic the farther he got from the redhead.

Definitely time—past time—he got laid.

Chloe watched as the behemoth stomped away after delivering his rude dismissal.

Not that she was in the least deterred by that rudeness. Journalism, she had quickly learned, wasn't for the fainthearted. It was either grow a skin of leather to protect yourself from the abuse that often came your way, or sink without a trace.

And if Mr. Muscle thought he had frightened her off with his growly behavior, then he was mistaken. After their conversation, Chloe was more convinced than ever there was a secret inside these austere castle walls.

"What did you say?"

Nathaniel scowled across the kitchen table at his brother as the two men sat drinking coffee together after their evening meal. "A woman came up to the castle today."

"What woman?" Deryk demanded.

"Well, I didn't talk to her long enough for us to exchange names." Nathaniel barely held his sarcasm in check.

His brother tensed. "You spoke to her?"

"It's called conversation," he drawled. "You should try it sometime. I believe it's something people do on a regular basis. Polite people."

Deryk scowled his lack of appreciation for the unmistakable sarcasm. "I'm neither polite nor people," he snapped. "So where have you put her? In your bedroom or the dungeon?"

Nathaniel grimaced. "Neither."

His brother looked a mess, his blond hair overlong and untidy, stubble on his jaw. "What do you mean, neither?"

Nathaniel sighed heavily at the other man's aggression. "I'm sure that most people are intimidated by your scowling countenance, brother, but need I remind you I am not only older but also bigger than you are?"

Deryk gave a snort as he stood up with a noisy scrape of the kitchen chair. "A minute in age and an inch in height."

Most would assume, given that information, that Nathaniel and Deryk were twins. Not so. Not only did they look completely unalike—Deryk fair where Nathaniel was dark—but they had been born to different mothers.

"And don't think that by changing the subject, I've forgotten the woman," Deryk warned harshly.

"Goddess forbid," he drawled.

"Where is she?" his brother snapped.

"As she isn't a local, I suspect she's back at the inn if she's staying in the village. Or on her way back to wherever it is she came from."

Deryk's eyes gleamed a dark and molten gold. "You let her leave?"

"Yes, I let her leave." Nathaniel remained outwardly calm, but inwardly, he could feel his anger rising in defense of his actions.

"The fuck...!" His brother bent down until his face was an equal height with Nathaniel's. Lighter gold flecks had appeared in his dark gold orbs as a warning his volatile temper was very near the surface. "Why?" he growled.

"Maybe because, unlike you, I don't have a wish to kill all the humans that wander into our territory." Nathaniel also stood, using that inch in superior height to look down at Deryk. "We're here to protect the humans, not kill them."

"We were sent here to protect one human," his brother corrected harshly. "That human has been dead for a long time."

"Then we didn't do such a good job of protecting him."

"Unlike us, our brother was completely human, and so always fated to die."

Unlike them, who had been born to protect their brother for the short span of human years he'd lived. Yet they were still here, had been so for over fifteen hundred years, the gates of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld, firmly closed against them.

Because they weren't human. Not anywhere close.

Nathaniel could barely contain his impatience with this conversation. "So now we kill humans?"

Deryk's stance was one of aggression. "To protect ourselves? Our family?" he rasped. "If they get too close, then yes, we fucking kill them!"

Green eyes battled with gold. In the same way their beasts would battle if either of them allowed those beasts to break free.

Brother against brother.

Dragon against dragon.

The tension snapped in the air between the two of them for several long minutes before some of the aggression finally left Deryk's shoulders and he took a step back, his expression becoming rueful. "Was she beautiful?"

Nathaniel's own tension eased slightly. "Yes."

"Then why didn't you bring her here for us to share?"

Mine.

He and Deryk had shared women on and off for years, dozens, hundreds of them, but the possessive reaction of Nathaniel's beast told him not to attempt it this time, not with this particular woman.

His smile lacked humor. "Possibly because my dragon wants to throw her on the ground and fuck her."

Deryk eyed him curiously. "He doesn't want to share?"

"Not this time, no."

"Could she be your fated mate?"

Nathaniel scowled. "I thought we had all agreed there's no such fucking thing as our fated mate."

"But—"

"It's at times like this I wish our bodies didn't have a total lack of reaction to the effects of alcohol." They had learned years ago that their immunity to alcohol made it a complete waste of their time and money.

Deryk still eyed him curiously. "How can you be sure she isn't your fated mate?"

"She's human."

And they were dragons.

Mystical creatures of myth and legend.

They were also men.

Men and dragon combined, and they had been alive for over fifteen centuries.

Ten male children. Sons of a human king and the ten sorceresses sent from Annwn to bear his dragon children. Once pregnant, those sorceresses had returned to Otherworld to give birth to their sons. When those children reached the age of the equivalent of thirty-five human years, they had ceased to age and their dragons had awoken, indicating it was time for them to return to the human realm to protect their human brother.

But not before their mothers had told them of another prophecy. A promise that, for their unselfish service to the earth realm, they would one day meet their fated mate. The one woman who had been born just for them, and who would bear their offspring.

All these centuries later, none of the dragons had yet found their fated mate. Some, like Deryk, were starting to turn feral without the mating to a female to soothe their warrior spirit. Their dragon natures were starting to take precedence over their human side, until one day there would be only dragon left. When that happened, the other brothers would have no choice but to destroy the feral dragon he had become.

After the death of their human brother, they had spent the first two centuries searching the far reaches of the world for the female dragons who would become their mates. They had discovered many Other, also hiding in full view of the human world, but no female dragons existed.

They still searched, every fifty years or so, in case that had changed. But so far, there were still no female dragons for them to mate with.

In the meantime, all their hearts were becoming as hard as the jewels they coveted and hoarded beneath the castle that had been home to them all for so long.

They were powerful, as only their beasts could make them. Wealthy in the jewels and money the human world had given them. Yet none of the eight dragons that remained had ever found the fated mate promised to them.

Until now?

A part of Nathaniel wished it was so, because then there might be hope they could save Deryk.

But Nathaniel's senses told him the woman he had met today was completely human. And no human female could ever be the mate of the dragon as well as the man.

To attempt to do so might kill her.
Chapter 2

"It's really over this time, Keith," Chloe spoke impatiently into her cell phone.

"But—"

"I have to go now. Bye." She ended the call before her ex could start whining again, sighing deeply as she turned the cell phone off completely so that he couldn't call her back.

Keith had changed his mind—again—and had now decided he did have the time to join her in Wales after all. Ha. After six months of being messed around with by Keith's capricious nature, Chloe'd had quite enough, thank you very much. Their schedules often clashed so that they only saw each other maybe once, sometimes twice a week, anyway. It wasn't even as if the sex had been that great either.

She'd just been too lazy, Chloe realized now, to go through the angst of the final breakup and then the bother of looking for someone else.

Far from her home in London, and Keith, and with a mystery to solve and the possibility of a story at the end of it, it seemed much easier to end things between the two of them once and for all.

And that decision had nothing to do with six foot seven inches of unadulterated sexual fantasy come to life.

Chloe hadn't been able to get the man from the castle out of her mind for the past two days. Or out of her dreams for the past two nights. Vivid, Technicolor dreams that caused her to wake up panting, her nipples hard, clit throbbing, her pussy dripping with the slick juices of her dream-induced climax.

Those dreams of the behemoth had been more satisfying than actual sex with Keith had ever been.

Sleep had taken her to a place where that huge and sexy stranger was completely naked, allowing Chloe to see that part of his anatomy was in complete proportion to the rest of his amazingly muscular body. In other words, extra-extra-large!

Mm, yes please.

Receiving a phone call from Keith this morning and having him tell her he was coming to Wales after all, after she had spent the night dreaming of erotic and satisfying sex with the big guy—she really did need to find out what his name was; couldn't keep calling him big guy or Mr. Muscle—had been the equivalent of a cold shower.

In other words, no, thank you.

It had rained yesterday, and rather than go back up the mountain, Chloe had decided to leave it another day before returning. She'd spent most of yesterday in the village asking the locals more questions about the inhabitants of the castle. They seemed a pretty closemouthed lot when it came to the men at Pendragon Castle, but one of them had let slip that the men were brothers. She had also spoken to the mother of one of the young ladies who had "spent the night or two up at the castle."

According to Mrs. Jones, it had just been a youthful indiscretion for young Bronwyn. She was now married, with two young children, and living in Cardiff. And no, her mother was sure Bronwyn wouldn't discuss that night with Chloe.

Chloe hadn't thought it tactful to ask the elderly lady which brother Bronwyn had slept with and if the sex had been as good as Chloe had dreamed it was.

Much as she might have wanted to.

Way to go, Chloe, she congratulated herself. She was having fantasies about a man who she believed could be bringing illegal drugs or arms into the country and seducing innocents from the Welsh Valleys.

Today, as it wasn't raining or forecast to do so, Chloe had made plans to go back up the mountain. Not in the hopes of seeing Mr. Muscle again, she assured herself firmly, but in the quest for more knowledge as to what the hell was going on up there.

Yeah, right.

Why was it that the sexiest men were always the bad ones too?

Looking at it a different way, maybe it was the fact they were bad men that made them sexy.

Whatever the reason, Chloe had every intention of going back to Pendragon Castle today. And if she was lucky, she might even get to talk to her nighttime fantasy again.

She was back.

Despite his warnings, his rudeness, Nathaniel knew the woman from two days ago was back on his mountain. Again.

He didn't know whether to be intrigued or angry with the redhead's bloody-minded persistence.

Once again, Nathaniel's superior vision allowed him to observe her from the vantage point of one of the turrets long before she reached the castle.

Her hair was secured at her nape today, muting the red color and revealing the slenderness of her throat and her vulnerable nape. She was wearing a blue T-shirt, the same color as her eyes, with fitted black jeans, and carrying a backpack on her slender shoulders.

Nathaniel's eyes were drawn to the bag as it bounced against her back just above her delicious ass. Round and heart-shaped, that ass would fit nicely in his hands as he plunged the heavy length of his cock inside her and—

What the hell was he doing?

Yes, his human form would allow him to fuck this woman, as he had fucked hundreds before her, but his dragon was too unstable where this woman was concerned for Nathaniel to dare take that risk.

When dragons mated, they bit their mate on the back of the neck hard enough to break the skin and allow the dragon to take some of her blood, and in return, she would receive the aphrodisiac in the dragon's saliva. A human woman was not only likely to scream hysterically if she was bitten, but also die from the brute force of the lovemaking the aphrodisiac would make her unable to resist.

If the woman was a fated mate, the barb at the base of his dragon cock would also swell and then lock him inside her.

Having that conversation with his mother had definitely been filed away as one of the most embarrassing moments of his life in Nathaniel's long living memory.

This woman could not be his fated mate.

The physical attraction he felt for her meant he needed to stay well away from her, at the same time as he couldn't let his brother find her on the property. If Deryk was drawn to her as much as Nathaniel was, then his brother would simply take her, and to hell with the consequences.

"I thought I told you to go and never to come back."

"Jesus!" Chloe spun round so fast, she almost fell over a tussock of grass at her feet. One of her hands did press against the palpitations his appearance had caused in her chest. "How do you do that?" she snapped.

"Do what?"

Mr. Muscle was wearing a dark navy-blue T-shirt today, along with faded jeans. The wraparound sunglasses were once again hiding his eyes, although the sun really wasn't that bright today. This was Wales, for goodness' sake, where it rained more often than not.

"Keep creeping up on me in that way," she accused, hands down at her sides as she glared at him. Not just because he had caught her unawares—again—but because she really did respond to this man on a sexually visceral level she had never experienced before.

It was...unnerving.

He tilted his head to one side. "This is my property. I'm at liberty to do anything on it, even creep if I want to. Whereas you..."

"Yeah, yeah, go away and don't come back." She gave him what she hoped was an engaging grin. "Don't get me wrong, this is a lovely area, but there isn't a lot to do other than hike during the day and read a book in the evening. You're the first really interesting person I've met since I got here." As Chloe knew, a little flattery could go a long way with a handsome man.

This man looked far from impressed as he studied her stony-faced for several seconds before speaking again. "Are you flirting with me?"

Chloe chuckled. "Well, if you don't know, then I can't be doing it right."

"You aren't from around here, are you?"

She laughed. "Did the London accent give me away?"

"The fact you're flirting with me gave you away."

Chloe felt her unease returning, as there had been no answering smile on his face during any of this conversation to show he was simply returning her banter. She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Why is that?"

His smirk was dangerous rather than reassuring. "The local women know better."

"That isn't what I've heard," she came back pertly.

Nathaniel couldn't work out if this young woman was naturally open and friendly or merely too naïve to know when she was putting herself in danger.

Mine.

Not again, Nathaniel warned impatiently, aware that breathing in the woman's scent—lemons and flowers—had gone straight to his cock. Again. Something his dragon was very happy about, apparently.

"I'm Chloe, by the way," she announced before he could think of a suitable reply to her earlier question. "Chloe Evans."

"You're Welsh?"

"Maybe way back in my ancestry, but otherwise no."

Nathaniel stared at the small and elegant hand she held out to him. He didn't want to touch her and give his dragon something else to roar his approval of.

"I assure you, it's clean," she teased when he didn't return the friendly gesture.

"Nathaniel," he bit out tersely at the same time as he thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Breathing her in was too much temptation. Touching her as he had yesterday was a mistake he didn't intend to repeat.

Her smile became rueful as she straightened. "Maybe you could invite me in for a cup of tea or a cold drink now that we've formally introduced ourselves?"

Nathaniel eyed her exasperatedly. "Are you usually this forward?"

Chloe had never really thought about it before, but yes, she supposed she was a bit pushy. Make that a lot pushy. It was the only way to get on in journalism. Although she accepted, with this particular man, she might be biting off a little more than she could chew.

"How do you know, for instance," he pressed. "That I'm not a mass murderer?"

Chloe's unease deepened. "Are you?"

His brows rose. "I'm hardly likely to admit to it if I am."

"Well, I survived our first meeting, so hopefully I'll survive our second one." She shrugged. "Any chance of that cup of tea or cold drink?"

His nostrils flared as he breathed heavily. "My brother isn't up to us having visitors today."

"Your other brothers are away?"

His sudden tension was palpable. "How did you know about my brothers?"

She shrugged. "Someone in the village mentioned it."

He quirked one dark, surprised eyebrow. "Voluntarily?"

Chloe frowned at the strangeness of the question. "Well, I didn't have to twist their arm or pay them, if that's what you mean," she dismissed lightly.

"Interesting," he murmured.

Chloe had no idea why it should be. It had been her experience that people in villages were only too eager to talk about the other inhabitants. Especially ones with a bit of a mystery attached to them, like the men living at Pendragon Castle. "So there's only the two of you here right now?"

"Why do you want to know?"

She gazed up at him quizzically. "You know, it's very difficult to have a conversation with someone when you can't see the expression in their eyes."

Nathaniel was well aware of that. As he was aware he was a mass murderer of sorts. Admittedly, all those deaths had been during battle, and many centuries ago, but he doubted Miss Perky—Chloe—would be able to differentiate between the two. Death was death, after all.

It was also interesting that the compulsion they kept on the people in the village to stop them from revealing anything about them to strangers hadn't stopped them from answering at least some of Chloe's questions. As far as Nathaniel was aware, that had never happened before. Further indication there was something...special about Chloe Evans.

And his sunglasses were remaining exactly where they were. The expression in his eyes right now would probably frighten the hell out of her. His eyes glowed when his emotions were aroused, and Chloe made him physically aroused without even trying. The sound of her voice alone was enough to wake his dragon.

"Daylight hurts my eyes," he dismissed.

"You aren't a vampire, are you?" Her lips curved in a teasing smile.

Nathaniel wondered what she would say if he told her he was a dragon, not a vampire, but that vampires did exist. Werewolves too. Would she run off screaming? The challenge in her eyes told him probably not. "No, I'm not a vampire," he drawled.

"Whew, that's good to know." She gave another of those friendly grins. "What do you all find to do here all day?"

His patience was starting to wear thin, wafer thin. "I don't have time for this, so if you wouldn't mind removing your delectable ass off my mountain—"

Chloe had trouble holding back a laugh as she saw the way Nathaniel's—nice name—mouth had tightened at the slip. "You think I have a delectable ass?"

His brows rose above those sunglasses as a visible sign of his exasperation. "I also think you have a smart mouth," he rasped.

"I like you too." Chloe bumped her arm against his, instantly aware of the rock-solid muscle beneath the tanned skin. He felt as warm to the touch as he had yesterday. Too warm. Maybe he wasn't feeling well. "Is your brother ill?" If he was, she had a feeling Nathaniel wasn't going to be far behind him.

"What makes you think that?" he prompted cagily.

"You said he wasn't up to seeing visitors today."

"I'm perfectly well, thank you."

Chloe spun round as another man spoke behind her. Deryk, from the way he had answered her question. "How did you do that?" Her tone was accusing. It was almost as if these men dropped from the sky. Which was impossible.

Deryk was almost as tall as Nathaniel, which was huge, and just as muscular in a long black leather duster, black T-shirt and black leather trousers. But he didn't look much like his brother, with his overlong blond hair and golden eyes. Golden eyes? There was no such thing as gold-colored eyes. Pale brown, maybe, but not gold.

Yep, they were definitely gold, she decided after a second look. Intensely focused golden eyes, ones that almost appeared to glow from the lighter flecks fanning out from the black of his pupils.

The rest of his face was...well, he was as magnetically attractive as his brother, with his high cheekbones and very straight nose. But his sensual lips were grimly unsmiling, unlike Nathaniel, whose mood seemed to fluctuate between exasperation and amusement. Both at her expense.

One thing Chloe did know, their father must have been a huge sonofabitch, handsome too, to have produced two such tall and attractive sons.

"Is this her?" Deryk ignored her and addressed his question to Nathaniel.

"Yes," he confirmed, tight-lipped.

That golden gaze swept over Chloe, from her walking boots to the red of her confined hair. "You're right, she is beautiful."

Much as Chloe appreciated knowing Nathaniel had told his brother he thought she was beautiful, it actually didn't sound like much of a compliment coming from Deryk's sneering lips.

Nathaniel was big and powerful, but there was a barely leashed wildness about his brother she wasn't sure she altogether trusted. Which, as these men were criminals, was to be expected.

Even so, she instinctively took a step closer to Nathaniel, all the time keeping her wary gaze fixed on Deryk. It was as if her body wanted to be ready for flight or ask for Nathaniel's protection if his brother should decide to attack.

Maybe she should have taken Nathaniel's advice two days ago and stayed off their mountain. She knew a bit of jujitsu, but it was years since she'd attended any sessions.

She kept her gaze fixed on Deryk as he slowly walked around her, like a predator eyeing its prey. His nostrils flared, almost as if he was sniffing her. Oh God, did she smell sweaty? She had showered this morning, but it was a bit of a climb up to the top of this mountain.

"Delicious," he finally purred. "Bring her inside," he instructed his brother.

"Deryk—"

"Now."

"We can't—"

"Or I'll do it for you," Deryk bit out in warning. "The first time she came here may have been an accident, but she doesn't appear to me to be the sort of woman who would make the same mistake twice. Which means she came here deliberately this time. I think we owe it to ourselves to find out why, don't you? Well, look at that, she seems to like you," he mocked as Chloe took yet another step closer to Nathaniel.

Her gaze had shifted from one to the other of the men as the conversation ping-ponged between the two of them. Deryk sounded threatening. Nathaniel reasoning. But both were obviously dangerous, if in different ways.

"But I'm sure she'll warm up to me too"—those golden eyes swept over her once again—"once we've taken her to the dungeon and shown her how...pleasurable it is to take two men at the same time."

Two men at the— "Now just a minute," Chloe protested as she eyed him incredulously. "I have no intention of taking one of you, let alone two!"

"No?" Deryk mocked, towering over her with his superior height and muscular build.

"No."

"Why not?"

Her brow lowered. "Because I don't know you."

"I'm offering to rectify that for you."

He was offering to share her, take her. At the same time as his brother.

Chloe turned to the man behind her. "Nathaniel?" She hated the edge of fear she could hear in her voice. But there wasn't a single thing about Deryk that gave her the impression he was merely trying to scare her off. The opposite. He obviously wanted to keep her here, a prisoner inside the castle, for his amusement. "Do something!"

"Oh, he will, once he gets over his misguided scruples." Deryk gave a hard chuckle. "And I guarantee you're going to love every minute of it."

"You can take your guarantee and shove it—" She broke off as Nathaniel grasped and then squeezed her arm in warning. "You can't do this," she appealed to him.

"Oh, I assure you, he can, and he will." Deryk nodded determinedly. "The smell of your fear is overwhelming right now, but one sniff of you when you're aroused and Nathaniel won't be able to resist you," he added with certainty before glancing at his brother. "Calm her down and then bring her inside." He strode off toward the castle, leaving a stunned and—yes, she admitted it—terrified Chloe behind him.

This had gone from a bit of lighthearted flirting and bantering with Nathaniel as a means of getting closer to her story—yeah, really, just keep telling yourself that, Chloe—to the scary possibility she was going to be kept a prisoner by both these dangerous men.

Going to be taken by both of them?
Chapter 3

As far as Nathaniel was concerned, this second meeting with Chloe had suddenly gone from precarious to dangerous as hell the moment Deryk made his appearance.

Nathaniel had barely been able to contain his anger when his brother swooped down with all the grace and stealth his golden dragon was capable of, to land just behind Chloe. If she had turned one second earlier than she had, she would have seen Deryk in dragon form rather than as the fully clothed man he had become, leaving them no choice but to eliminate her on the spot.

Further evidence of his brother's instability of mind.

None of them had ever deliberately revealed their true self to a human. On the rare occasion it had happened accidentally, they'd had no choice but to kill that human to protect their secret.

It hadn't been like this when they'd first come to Wales. The humans then had lived their lives at the will of the gods or seasons. It had been easier for people to accept the existence and presence of the creatures from Annwn.

But the humans of the past few centuries considered themselves educated and sophisticated, and consequently dismissed the existence of the creatures from age-old fairy tales. The few times the dragons' existence had been discovered, the humans had reacted with hysteria that led to blood being shed.

It had happened during Victoria's reign and resulted in a witch hunt—or rather, a dragon hunt. The Victorians were a bloodthirsty lot.

Their brother Rufus had perished during those years of being hunted. Dragons were hard to kill, but having their head chopped off with their own sword, brought with them from Annwn and blessed by the gods, was a sure way to do it.

After losing Rufus in that way, they had taken care to remain hidden away in Pendragon Castle, venturing out only when someone was in need of their protection.

Humans nowadays seemed to like the idea of the myth of the dragons' existence. Numerous romance books had been published on the subject, as well as movies. But watching or reading about dragons, while sitting within the safety of their armchairs at home or in cinemas, was totally different from coming face-to-face with a real live fifteen-to-twenty-foot-high dragon capable of breathing fire and destroying everything in its path.

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries had also seen the appearance of airplanes, along with more and more sophisticated firepower that could actually follow those dragons in the air and shoot them down.

Even the possibility that Chloe might discover what they were would be enough for Deryk to decide she had to be eliminated. Eventually. His brother had already made it clear what his immediate plans were for Chloe.

Unfortunately, Deryk had Chloe's scent now, meaning he could hunt her down whenever he felt like it. Whenever Deryk decided it was time to fuck and then kill her.

Mine, Nathaniel's dragon demanded.

Which was precisely the reason Nathaniel hadn't wanted to challenge Deryk with Chloe present. A challenge from him would have ended with the two of them changing in front of her, and therefore sealing her fate.

Deryk had once been the most civilized of them all, both courteous and kind. He would never have dreamed of taking a woman prisoner, let alone forcing his attentions on her. The closer Deryk came to being only dragon and losing his humanity forever, the more precarious his state of mind became.

Nathaniel needed to control this present situation, firstly by placing Chloe under his protection.

Chloe had watched quietly as myriad emotions flickered across Nathaniel's face. The last, unfortunately, she recognized as resolve. "You really don't have to do this," she pleaded. "I'll go down the mountain and return to London today, and I'll never tell another living soul what you're doing up here."

He arched a dark brow. "And what are we doing up here?"

She shrugged. "I'm guessing, from the helicopters landing under cover of darkness, you must be bringing in drugs or illegal firearms."

"Helicopters?" he repeated slowly.

Chloe nodded. "Several other visitors to the village mentioned having seen them landing in the castle grounds after dark."

Nathaniel's jaw tightened as he realized the adult humans, at least, had used their logical minds rather than a child's imagination to explain the nighttime flights he and his brothers took in dragon form. They were able to control those sightings with the locals, but as more and more visitors began to visit the Welsh mountains, it was becoming increasingly difficult to shield themselves from all curious eyes. "Really?"

"Yes." Her expression turned anxious. "Look, I promise I won't breathe a word about the drugs or arms smuggling to anyone else, if you'll only let me go."

Nathaniel had thought the sighting of "helicopters" as being bad, but for Chloe to have assumed those aircraft were bringing in drugs or illegal firearms was wrong on so many levels.

She's human, with a human's logic and cynicism, he reminded himself. With the information Chloe had, what other conclusion could she have made about eight brothers holed up in a remote Welsh castle, with no visible means of supporting themselves, other than that they must be doing something illegal?

The opposite was true.

Fifteen hundred years plus was a very long time to be alive and have nothing to do to keep the boredom from sending them quietly out of their minds.

After the death of their human brother, they had become mercenaries for hire to any army fighting for justice and freedom. That occupation had necessarily changed titles over the years, but it was still them fighting the bad guys.

Grigor, their eldest brother, had solved the problem of what work they should do last century and this one by forming a security company, based at an office in London, and fronted by a receptionist who had absolutely no idea she was employed by dragons. The clients now came to them, and if they all agreed the job had merit, they would accept a hefty commission to carry out the necessary work.

They had been born during an age of chivalry and honor, and they still took those traits very seriously.

At least, they had. Deryk's increasingly unstable behavior was seriously starting to jeopardize the integrity of all of them.

Who would be next, Nathaniel wondered. Grigor? Nathaniel, himself? Or one of their other brothers?

"Nathaniel, please!" Chloe had no idea what he was thinking about to make him scowl so darkly, but it didn't bode well for her being allowed to leave. "I haven't seen anything I shouldn't, so my theory was merely conjecture," she assured belatedly; she really should learn to keep her big mouth shut. "Your brother can't just decide to take me prisoner." Her voice rose on a note of indignation as Nathaniel made no reply. "People don't just disappear."

"I beg to differ," he drawled. "People disappear all the time, sometimes involuntarily, but more often than not, voluntarily."

He was right, they did. "But they don't usually leave all their things behind at the inn they were staying at. The couple who run the inn will realize I'm missing when I don't come back in time for dinner this evening," she added desperately when Nathaniel's expression remained unmoved by all her pleas.

She wasn't telling the complete truth about the people at the inn. She had already eaten at the local pub once during her stay, and when she told the landlord of the inn of her intention, he had assured her it wasn't necessary for her to inform them if she wouldn't be there for dinner.

Nathaniel nodded. "I'll call them, explain you've decided to become our guest for a while. I'll also ask them to pack your things and have them brought up here."

Bearing in mind all the questions Chloe had asked the past few days about the people at Pendragon Castle, and the winks and knowing looks she'd received for her curiosity, it wasn't difficult to realize no one would have a problem believing she had chosen to become a guest at the castle.

She had no family to worry about her. Her mother had been killed in a car accident when Chloe was five, and her father had died of cancer two years ago.

She worked freelance, so she had no work colleagues to notice her absence either.

Too late, Chloe realized she had also told Keith it was completely over between the two of them during their telephone conversation this morning.

There was no one in her life, absolutely no one, who would realize she was missing.

Even the owner of her London apartment wouldn't know she hadn't come back from Wales until her rent didn't arrive in his bank account on time. He would probably send out a reminder email, and when she didn't reply to that, he would simply evict her belongings out onto the street and then re-lease her apartment to someone else.

She swallowed as her panic rose. "How long do you intend to keep me a prisoner?"

"That depends," he answered guardedly.

"On what?"

"On why you were here and how much you know."

"I told you, I don't know anything."

"You've already told me you think we're guilty of something illegal."

And by admitting that, Chloe knew she had placed all her cards on the table without leaving herself any sort of bargaining chip. "Kidnapping me will only make the situation worse," she reasoned.

"Can it get any worse?"

It would be a lot worse if she ended up dead, yes. "You really don't want to do this, Nathaniel."

No, he really didn't, Nathaniel acknowledged heavily. But far better he controlled this situation than have Deryk take matters into his own hands.

He reached out and took a firm hold of Chloe's arm, and immediately felt that frisson of excitement coursing down his arm like an electric shock before centering on his cock.

What the hell was that?

Our fated mate? his dragon questioned eagerly.

Abso-fucking-lutely not!

"Just come with me— Ouch!" Nathaniel frowned darkly as Chloe landed a hefty kick to his shin with one of her walking boots, followed by another and then another. It didn't hurt his toughened skin, was more of a surprise than anything, but the fact she was fighting him was further evidence of her feisty nature. "Stop that, before you hurt yourself," he advised harshly.

"You and your brother are the ones who intend to hurt me," she accused as she landed another kick to the same shin.

"I won't let anyone hurt you."

"Why should I believe you?" She landed yet another kick.

"Because I don't lie."

She snorted. "I'm supposed to believe the word of a drug or arms smuggler?"

"Fine, we'll do this your way." Nathaniel placed a hand firmly against her back and the other about her thighs before hoisting her over one of his shoulders. She proceeded to pummel his back with her fists and scream obscenities at him as he strode toward the castle.

Nathaniel believed he had adapted well over the years to the change in the dynamics of human society. Most especially, he admired the women of the last century and this one for fighting and gaining their rights in so many areas that had previously been dominated by men.

Unfortunately, hearing those words come out of a woman's mouth was not one of the things he had accepted or approved of.

"Stop using that language right now." He landed a hard smack to her backside to accompany his words.

"Fucking bastard—" She broke off with a pained gasp as Nathaniel landed another smack, harder this time. "Stop doing that!"

"I'll stop when you stop."

"Bastard. Brute. Fucker. Pig." Chloe had barely finished that last word before Nathaniel landed four smacks to her backside in quick succession. One for each curse she had used? "Shit. Bugger. Fuck." Yep, she received another smack for each of those three words, tears stinging her eyes as the pain of them reverberated through her whole body.

But not only pain...

Chloe had never been into kinky sex, or anything remotely approaching the BDSM scene. She wasn't into pain, full stop, either taking it or inflicting it. But she would be lying if she didn't admit, to herself at least, that having Nathaniel spank her bottom had caused her nipples to harden and her pussy to heat, along with an increasing dampening of her panties to accompany the latter.

She was being carried off like a sack of potatoes so that these two men could hold her prisoner and do God knows what to her—although Deryk had been pretty explicit in what he wanted from her—and she was being turned on by having her bottom smacked? How screwed up was that?

Very, came the self-disgusted reply.

And now Nathaniel was running one of his large, very hot, and soothing hands over the flesh that same hand had abused. A heat and a sting Chloe could feel even through the denim material of her jeans. That caressing hand was causing yet more slick juices to gush between her thighs.

Nerve endings were sparking and igniting throughout the whole of Nathaniel's body as he carried Chloe over his shoulder. Breathing her in only increased his arousal. He'd tried to stop breathing altogether at one stage, until his lungs complained at the lack of oxygen. Breathing in more deeply than ever due to that lack of oxygen had only made the situation worse. His cock was now fully engorged, thick and long as it strained against the front of his jeans.

The feel of her draped over his shoulder, along with each new breath saturated with Chloe's scent, was causing his cock to demand attention. Release.

Nathaniel drew in a hissing breath as he felt the clawing of Chloe's fingernails down his back through the material of his T-shirt. Something that was obviously meant to hurt him, but only succeeded in making his cock harder. Nathaniel was pretty sure it was going to actually burst open the zip on his fly any second now.

"Need any help?"

Nathaniel scowled at the amusement he heard in his brother's voice the moment he stepped into the cavernous hallway carrying Chloe over his shoulder. A quick glance at the other man's face reassured him the glow had faded from his brother's eyes, indicating the danger had passed—thank God—and Deryk had his dragon under control again. For now, at least.

"No," Nathaniel rasped, not wanting anything to set his brother off again. Touching Chloe, breathing in her aroused scent, was certain to do that.

Mine.

There was also that possessiveness of his dragon to take into consideration. For some reason, his dragon had decided Chloe was theirs, and another man or dragon touching Chloe was not to be tolerated.

"Bedroom or dungeon?"

"Dungeon," Nathaniel stated; Chloe would be far too much of a temptation if he put her in his bedroom. He was nowhere near the breaking point Deryk was, but his own control wasn't limitless. The dungeon would also keep her farther away from Deryk.

"You were serious about putting me in an actual dungeon?" Chloe repeated incredulously.

"It was built fifteen centuries ago, at the same time as the castle," Deryk supplied mockingly.

"You have got to be kidding me!" she muttered disgustedly.

Deryk stepped around Nathaniel to bend down until his face was level with hers. "It even has chains on the wall we can attach your wrists and ankles to. Maybe we can even find some whips and a couple of paddles, as you seem to like having your ass smacked so much."

"I don't—"

"I can scent your arousal, little girl," Deryk all but growled.

Nathaniel could imagine Chloe's red-faced reaction to his brother's sick humor at her expense. But he doubted Chloe knew Deryk was playing with her. Not when she believed the two of them to be involved in some form of illegal activity, and that they also probably intended to kill her at some point.

Besides, they hadn't used those chains on the dungeon wall to secure anyone for a couple of centuries now.

Nathaniel wondered what Chloe would say if she knew they'd had this castle built for themselves, he and his brothers, all those centuries ago? She wouldn't believe him, of course. No one would, not unless they actually saw their dragons, and that wasn't going to happen.

"Bastard!" Chloe confirmed how seriously she was taking Deryk's conversation as she spat the word in his face.

His brother straightened to glance at Nathaniel. "This one is going to be fun to break."

"Give it your best shot," Chloe challenged. "I'm tougher than you think."

Deryk chuckled, but Nathaniel gave an inward groan. This woman really didn't know when to shut up. Her defiant attitude was merely encouraging Deryk to continue to toy with her as he played on her fears. "Definitely the dungeon," Nathaniel stated firmly as he turned in the direction of the steps leading down into the depths beneath the castle.

Chloe's anger and bravado left her to be replaced by increasing fear as Nathaniel strode across the entrance hall, her attention caught and held by the suits of armor lining that hallway. Eight of them. Which was a bit of overkill, if you asked her. Most stately homes she'd visited had happily settled for one suit of armor in the hallway rather than eight.

They did look authentic, though, right down to the dents and scrapes on all of them. There were eight swords on the wall, too, one behind each suit of armor.

Chloe lost sight of the entrance hall as they went through a doorway and Nathaniel began to descend some stairs. Not wooden or carpeted ones, but stone steps that look as if they had been hewn out of the rock beneath the castle. The air chilled too the lower they went.

He really was taking her to a dungeon, was Chloe's panicked realization.

How had this happened to her?

Why had this happened to her?

Her own curiosity and big mouth were responsible, she realized with a sinking stomach. Her need to chase a story down, no matter what the danger or consequences. Well, this time she had obviously seriously pissed off the wrong people. She shouldn't have revealed her suspicions, of course; illegal drug and arms dealers weren't known for the softness of their hearts. There was too much money at stake.

The only thing in Chloe's favor at the moment was neither of these men knew she was a reporter. If they did, she doubted they would have even bothered taking her to a dungeon but would have killed her already.

Or maybe not.

No one would be able to see the blood spatters down here.

These thoughts really weren't helping her already frayed nerves.

It became darker, and then darker still, colder too, the deeper they went, until the floor evened out and Nathaniel flicked a switch that turned on several lights along the rock-hewn corridor in front of him.

"What did you expect?" he mocked as he must have heard Chloe's relieved sigh. "Lit torches?"

She ignored his sarcasm as she turned and lifted her head to see they were approaching what looked like a medieval torture chamber from the set of an old movie. Except this was far too real to be a prop in a movie. The front of the cell was iron bars from floor to ceiling, but the other three walls were more of that solid rock. Inside, there was only an iron bedstead and a bare mattress.

But it was the chains on the walls that held her attention as Nathaniel lowered her to the stone floor. "Please don't leave me alone down here." She grabbed hold of his arm as he turned to leave. "I don't like being shut in confined and dark spaces."

Chloe had been in the car during the accident that had killed her mother. It had been a dark winter night as they drove home from the supermarket that day, the roads slick with ice. The car had gone into a skid, her mother screaming at Chloe to hold on as the car spun round and round before hitting something with tremendous force.

Chloe had found out later it was an articulated truck, and their car had been squashed beneath it. Her mother had been killed instantly. Chloe had been trapped in the vehicle with her for hours while the firemen tried to cut them out of the mangled wreckage. Ever since then, Chloe had a fear of enclosed spaces, particularly small dark ones like this cell.

"Hand it over."

"What?" The question became moot as she realized Nathaniel was looking at the backpack she still carried. Damn, she had been hoping to keep that, thought maybe there might be something inside that could help her escape. Instead, she reluctantly swung it off her shoulders and handed it to the patiently waiting Nathaniel.

"Empty your pockets."

Double damn, her cell phone was in the front pocket of her jeans. Not that she thought she would be able to get a reception down here, but she would have felt less vulnerable knowing she had it. Besides, they couldn't keep her in this dungeon forever, and she might have been able to telephone for help.

Instead, she was forced to hand her cell phone over to Nathaniel too. Along with her car keys from the other pocket. "Please—" She broke off the plea as she looked at him properly for the first time and realized he was no longer wearing those wraparound sunglasses.

His eyes were the green of clear cut emeralds.

Glowing eyes the color of clear cut emeralds.

In the same way Deryk's eyes had earlier glowed that eerie gold...
Chapter 4

"Who are you?" Chloe demanded as she began to back away. "What are you?" Her voice rose in panic as she came up against the cold stone of the wall behind her and couldn't get any farther away in the confined space.

Chloe's was an age-old question, Nathaniel acknowledged wearily. He also knew the truth was likely to send even this feisty woman into more of a panic than she obviously already was at being kept here against her will.

He'd removed his sunglasses when he came into the castle, but as Chloe was thrown over his shoulder at the time, she wouldn't have seen that. Her reaction now told him his eyes must be glowing.

Because carrying Chloe, her close proximity and scent, meant he was still aroused.

Her hair had come loose as he carried her, and it now spilled about her shoulders in that spectrum of colors from red to gold. Her eyes were a dark blue, no doubt due to the fear she was trying to hide. Her cheeks were pale, but she nevertheless held her chin high with a defiant I'm-not-afraid-of-you attitude.

He turned away. "I'll bring you some food and water down shortly—"

"You'll answer my fucking question before you leave!"

Nathaniel came to an abrupt halt, his back having stiffened at what he was sure was a deliberate move on Chloe's part to antagonize him by swearing at him again. She really didn't have a self-preservation bone in her shapely body.

Because she didn't know what he really was, he reminded himself. Chloe believed he and his brothers were drug or arms smugglers. The truth was, human drugs had no more effect on them than alcohol did. Nor did Nathaniel need a gun, or anything else, to enable him to destroy an enemy.

Damn it, he had tried being reasonable with this woman.

Mine.

All while fighting the increasing demand of his dragon to take and claim.

It was a battle Nathaniel knew he had lost as his gaze narrowed, pinpointed on Chloe's curvaceous form.

Chloe barely registered Nathaniel moving before he was pressing her back up against the cold cell wall with the heat of his body, both her hands held captive above her head by one of his.

A very angry and very aroused Nathaniel.

The former was evident in those eerily glowing green eyes, the latter in the hard ridge of a very large cock pressing against her abdomen.

Note to self: in future do not piss off the man holding me prisoner in an actual dungeon.

That glowing green gaze moved down to Chloe's lips, and she realized she was running the tip of her tongue nervously across them.

If anything, his eyes glowed even brighter.

Chloe had never seen anyone's eyes do that before. Any human eyes, that was.

What the hell...?

She was letting her imagination run away with her. Of course Nathaniel was human. Wasn't everyone? Well, maybe not some of her ex-boyfriends, who she was sure were aliens from another planet, including Keith, but—

She was becoming hysterical.

Of course she was becoming hysterical!

Deryk's behavior and comments earlier had scared the hell out of her. He had sniffed her, for God's sake. Now she was being held prisoner in a dungeon. By two men with eyes that glowed. Nathaniel should think himself lucky she hadn't screamed more of those obscenities he seemed to take such exception to.

Remembering the way he had spanked her for swearing at him made her cheeks burn, and not just those on her face. "What are you, Neanderthal man?" She tried to brave out a situation that had suddenly turned from scary to outright dangerous.

The overwhelming heat of Nathaniel's body also thrummed with tension, a mocking smile curving his lips as he caged her against the wall with his arms and torso. "Not even close. Would you like to know what you are?"

Chloe told herself his tone couldn't really sound as if he was growling. His voice was deep and gravelly, yes, but so were a lot of other men's.

What about the underlying compulsion she could hear in that deep voice? How did she explain that away?

He settled the hardness of his hips more comfortably against her softer ones when she didn't answer him. "You're the woman who is asking to be fucked within an inch of your life," he informed her as if he had just told her the weather was nice for this time of year.

Chloe's stomach clenched before it did some sort of flip-flop, half in fear of the intent she could now see in Nathaniel's eyes, half in anticipation of the feel and taste of those sculpted lips against her own.

Sick. She was sick. This man and his equally as weird brother were not only keeping her a prisoner, but now Nathaniel had become as dangerous as his brother. Maybe more so, as he was holding her body immobile against the wall and her captive hands stretched high above her head.

Because he is dangerous, you twit. He's a crook who makes a living out of other people's misery.

The bloody man was also almost twice the size she was, and strong enough to do whatever he wanted to and with her, without exerting himself in the slightest.

She had gone about this the wrong way, Chloe realized. She should have played the poor-scared-little-woman card rather than the ballsy I'm-not-taking-any-shit-from-you-or-your-brother one.

She forced herself to relax her body and lowered her chin from its challenging angle. "I told you, I'm...uncomfortable in small, dark places."

Nathaniel didn't seem to hear her as he stared down at her for several long seconds. "I want a taste," he finally muttered as if to himself. "Just one taste," he groaned.

A taste of— Oh.

Every thought fled Chloe's head as Nathaniel lowered his head and his lips came down gently on hers. If he had been aggressive or demanding, she would have fought him, but his gentleness totally disarmed her. His lips felt hot against hers as they sipped and tasted, coaxing her into responding.

Chloe didn't stand a chance of resisting. Her lips parted beneath the persuasive heat of his, and she groaned softly as the tip of his tongue ventured inside her mouth, stroking hers and causing a tremulous answering warmth between her thighs.

She had no idea when he had released her hands. Only that her arms were now over his shoulders, her fingers entangled in the dark hair at his nape as she stood on tiptoe to allow the kiss to deepen and become more desperate.

It was as if they couldn't get enough of each other. As if Nathaniel was claiming her with only his lips and the heat of his tongue. It felt to Chloe as if she was trying to climb inside that red-hot skin with him, to become a part of him and never let him go.

Which was...stupid. Stupid and dangerous.

This man and his brother wanted to have sex with her, together, after which they would probably dispose of her body somewhere no one would ever find it.

Was Nathaniel softening her up for the main event? Was he showing her that he would be the "good cop" while his brother was the "bad cop"? Did the two of them get off on this?

Wrenching her head sideways was the only way Chloe had of breaking the kiss when Nathaniel's body was melded to hers from breasts to thighs. "Get off me." Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears.

He slowly raised his head to look at her, revealing those green eyes were slightly unfocused and glowing even more than they had been before.

"Get away from me!" Her hands pushed desperately against his rock-hard chest in an effort to push him away.

Nathaniel felt as if he was waking from a dream, his thoughts incoherent, his vision slightly blurred, all of his senses saturated with the feel of Chloe and the perfume of her arousal.

Mine, mine, mine.

Nathaniel's vision snapped back into focus, his head clearing and allowing him to think as he fought his dragon's claim. He had to get away from this woman. Fast. Before he did something they would both regret.

He kept his gaze fixed on her as he stepped back and away from her. "I'll leave the lights on, and I'll bring down the food and water soon." He picked up her things from the floor to take with him.

"What about trips to the bathroom?"

He glanced toward a rusty bucket in the corner of the cell.

"Now you really have to be kidding me," she muttered disgustedly. "I'm not going to pee in that."

Nathaniel breathed shallowly, not wanting to draw in any more of her scent, knowing at the moment he was as dangerous to Chloe as Deryk was. More so, in fact.

Because he hadn't wanted to let her go. Hadn't wanted to stop kissing her. What he had wanted was to throw her down on the dirty mattress, rip all her clothes from her body, and plunge his cock so deep inside her, he became a part of her and she became a part of him.

He'd bedded more women that he cared to think about during the last fifteen hundred years. But Chloe... She did something to his insides no other woman ever had. Something he didn't understand and wasn't sure he wanted to either.

A fated mate?

Hell, no. There was no such bloody thing. There never had been. Their mothers had told them that, and it was nothing more than a fairy tale. The same mothers who hadn't told them they would never be able to get back into Annwn once they entered the human realm.

This was it for them. There were no fated mates. Just this never-ending existence until, one by one, they became completely dragon and had to be destroyed by their own brothers.

They had discussed this between them many times, knew exactly what had to happen. After killing the last of his brothers, the final brother would kill himself before he turned feral and let loose his dragon on the world.

In the meantime, Nathaniel would get Chloe out of this situation somehow—although he wasn't sure quite how yet. If he consulted Grigor and his other brothers, they might agree with Deryk that she should be eliminated. Nathaniel couldn't allow that to happen.

Take her to our cave.

Nathaniel gave a snort. If Chloe thought the amenities in the dungeon were primitive, then she really would think she had returned to the time of Neanderthal man if Nathaniel took her to his cave.

It was the place he went to when he wanted to be dragon for more than a few hours. A huge cavernous place in the volcanic mountains of Iceland, far away from the nearest civilization. He had a nest there, of sorts, and some of his treasures. A dragon could never be completely separated from all its treasures.

But his cave had none of the comforts Chloe was used to, including heat. His natural temperature was always a few degrees higher than a human's, anyway, but in dragon form, he had a thick hide that kept him at a temperature that would most likely kill a human. His vision was also sharper as dragon. All his senses were.

He also doubted Chloe would be interested in eating raw fish, as he did when he spent time at his nest. Humans went to supermarkets and bought their fish and meat in sterile little packets rather than snatching up a fish or small animal in their claws and taking it back to their cave to gorge on its blood, flesh, and bones.

No, he couldn't take Chloe to his cave.

"Then don't," he answered her abruptly.

"I have to pee somewhere." The more they talked about the subject, the more Chloe felt as if she needed to pee now.

She was still a little shaken from kissing Nathaniel and being kissed by him. Nor was there any excuse for her behavior. It was certainly far too early in her captivity to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Besides, she'd been attracted to Nathaniel before he made her a prisoner.

"Do you have CCTV cameras down here?" She squinted up at each wall in turn, looking for a hidden camera. "Do you and your sick brother get off on watching and humiliating a woman? By forcing her to pee in a bucket? Does it give you a little thrill to catch a glimpse of her pus—"

"Chloe!"

"Whoa!" Her head tilted back instinctively as Nathaniel's voice boomed so loudly it seemed to bounce and reverberate off the rock walls.

His eyes had become green slits as he scowled down at her. "You will cease this shrewish behavior and foul language. At once."

Her brows rose. "Or what?"

His hands were clenched into ham-like fists at his sides. "Or that spanking you had earlier will seem like a playful tap," he grated.

Chloe had been trying not to think of the tingling and stinging of her ass cheeks, but Nathaniel's comment brought it all back with a vengeance. It was going to be painful to sit down, that was for sure.

Her mouth tightened. "If you leave me here alone, I'm going to scream the place down."

Some of his tension eased. "And no one will hear you. We're twenty feet below the surface, and as you can see, the walls are solid rock," he mocked as he strode toward the cell doorway. "Feel free to scream as much as you want."

"Nathaniel!" Chloe called out to him desperately as she could see he was going to pull the metal door closed behind him, locking her alone inside the cell. "I really don't like dark, enclosed spaces."

He didn't even glance back at her. "I've said I'll leave the lights on." The door clanged shut, followed by the turning and pocketing of the key, before Nathaniel walked away.

Chloe watched him until he disappeared and then she listened to the echo of his footsteps going up the stairs, heard a door close above. Followed by a complete and eerie silence.
Chapter 5

"All settled?" Deryk turned from his computer screen to look at Nathaniel as he entered the room they all used as an office.

"Fuck off." Nathaniel felt no hesitation in using the language he had admonished Chloe for. And yes, that made him a hypocrite, but his mood was so aggressive right now, he needed to work it off somehow. Otherwise, he was going to hit something. Or fuck someone.

Deryk raised his brows. "I apologize for my behavior earlier." He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. "I'm back in control now."

"I'm not."

His brother studied him intently. "You want her."

"What gave it away?" Nathaniel threw himself down into the chair behind his desk, and then winced as the tight material of his jeans instantly crushed his balls and cut off the blood supply to his cock. "The glow in my eyes or the fucking hard-on that's about to burst the zip on my jeans?" He stood up to adjust the length of his cock inside his boxers to something almost comfortable.

"What are you going to do about her?"

"Oh it's 'you' now, is it?" Nathaniel paced the office restlessly. His skin felt itchy and too small for his large frame, which told him he needed to change. To become dragon and fly for a couple of hours to stop this desire for Chloe from totally consuming him.

Deryk shrugged. "It's obvious you don't want to share this one."

Too damned right he didn't. He would kill any other man that touched Chloe. Any man. He would rip them apart with his bare hands, limb by limb, and then feed them to the—

"Oh God..." He sank down into a chair, threading his fingers tightly in his hair as he groaned. "What the hell is happening to me?"

Deryk eyed him searchingly. "Dylan might be able to tell you that better than me."

As well as being their healer, Dylan spent a lot of time researching and accumulating all the available knowledge he could on dragons. Most of it was nonsense, of course, written by humans, and more often than not years after an event had taken place. But sifting through the myth and legend and translating some of the older manuscripts was helping Dylan build a file on dragons as well as Annwn.

Although how that was supposed to help Nathaniel right now, he had no idea. "Do you think I've skipped a couple of stages and I'm becoming dragon?"

Deryk gave a slow shake of his head. "I seriously think—hope—you might have met your mate."

Nathaniel snorted. "Don't be fucking stupid. We've all agreed there is no such thing as a fated mate. That it was just a fairy story our mothers told us so we would come to the human realm and protect our brother."

His brother shrugged. "We'd have done that anyway, once we knew he was our brother."

True.

But Nathaniel's fated mate? Fiercely independent Chloe Evans? A twenty-first-century woman with a mouth on her like a dockworker? And a kick that could do irreversible damage to the more delicate parts of his body?

It had been a long time since Nathaniel had given the idea of a fated mate any serious thought. Why bother when it was never going to happen?

But whenever he'd thought about it in those early years, he'd imagined a complacent wife, a woman it was easy to be with, and who would warm his bed, cook his food, and bear his children.

Sixth-century thinking.

Women in this century didn't necessarily do any of those things. Oh, they might, if that was their choice. But as many women as men had careers nowadays, and quite often the women chose not to have children at all.

Not that children were something Nathaniel wanted. There were too many unanswered questions as to how or if his mate, even if she was dragon, would survive giving birth to their young.

Nathaniel and his brothers had been born in human form, like their father, but that didn't mean any offspring of Nathaniel's would be too.

"Chloe's human," he stated again flatly.

"So?"

"So we've bedded human women for years, but no human female could survive a full dragon mating, let alone giving birth to offspring."

"We don't know that."

"We don't know anything for certain, that's the fucking problem." Nathaniel began to pace again before grudgingly admitting, "I kissed her."

Deryk didn't look in the least surprised. "And?"

He closed his eyes, remembering how it had felt to kiss Chloe. The softness of her lips. The warmth of their mingled breaths. The lush contours of her body molded against his. The caress of her hands against his chest and shoulders, and her fingers entangled in the hair at his nape.

It had felt perfect.

"I wanted to take her," he acknowledged shakily as he opened his eyes. "Mark her. Bite her. Brand her as mine."

"You did, or your dragon did?"

Having been born human, the brothers had always made the distinction between man and dragon, and yet as the years passed, the lines between the two were becoming more and more blurred. Nathaniel was as much dragon as his dragon was human. They were one entity.

"Both," he acknowledged.

Deryk shrugged. "Then why didn't you?"

He scowled at his brother's lack of empathy for the safety of the woman they were discussing. "Sometimes I wonder if there's any humanity left in you at all."

His brother's eyes narrowed to slits. "If I found a woman I responded to on the level you do Chloe, then I wouldn't waste any time asking for her permission before I claimed her."

"Even if it killed her?"

Deryk shifted uncomfortably. "We won't know that until we try."

Nathaniel gave a firm shake of his head. "My dragon is too near the surface. I don't have the right to put her life at risk in that way. Chloe is a person, with feelings and a will of her own."

"Oh, I noticed that." Deryk smiled. "I imagine it'll make taming her all more enjoyable."

His eyes narrowed. "Keep your fucking thoughts and hands to yourself."

His brother grinned unapologetically. "Dragon up, Nate, and take the woman."

"She has friends. A job. Maybe family." Fuck, she might even have a husband or a long-term partner. Maybe children.

Why hadn't Nathaniel thought of that before now?

Because his cock and dragon were ruling his head, came the immediate answer.

"As your mate, she wouldn't need any of those things," Deryk dismissed.

"A human woman cannot be our mate!"

Deryk frowned. "Did it occur to you that maybe Chloe isn't completely human? We haven't found any pure-blooded female dragons, but that doesn't mean their ancestors aren't out there somewhere, totally oblivious to who they are and what they could be."

Was it possible that somewhere in Chloe's DNA there was dragon blood? It was a big risk for Nathaniel to take if they were wrong. "I would need Dylan to check her blood first, to see if it's compatible with mine—"

"Dylan isn't here right now."

"He could be—"

"We don't have time for that!" Deryk surged to his feet, his eyes glowing with anger. "I am this close, brother." He held the thumb and index finger of his right hand a centimeter apart. "This close to turning and never being human again. If one of us can find his mate, then it gives the rest of us hope we will find ours. Without that hope..."

He didn't need to finish the sentence for Nathaniel to know what it was. Without the bond of a mate, his brother would eventually become completely dragon and have to be killed. The rest of them would follow, one by one, until Welsh dragons were lost to the world forever.

Was that a bad thing?

Nathaniel was no longer sure.

The security work they did aided humans, and it gave the eight of them a focus and purpose they might otherwise not have had. But they still lived a half-life. Neither completely man nor dragon, the lonely hollow deep inside them never completely filled.

"Take a chance, brother." Deryk's hand gripped and then squeezed his shoulder. "For all our sakes," he added softly.

"And if I kill her?"

His brother's expression was bleak. "Then at least we'll all know once and for all that there really is no hope for any of us."

The question was, was Nathaniel willing to risk Chloe's life in order for them to know that?

"Grigor emailed a short time ago." Deryk changed the subject when Nathaniel made no reply. "He needs one of us to go to Colombia and help take down a particularly vicious drug cartel. I suggest, as I need to kill or fuck, that someone should be me," he added bleakly.

As Nathaniel had no intention of leaving Deryk here to do either of those things to Chloe, he nodded agreement of the plan.

"I'll talk to Dylan once I get to Colombia," Deryk reassured him. "See if he has any theories other than a fated mate to explain the intensity of your reaction to Chloe."

Could Nathaniel explain any of this to Chloe? Would she understand? Or just think he was slightly—a lot!—insane.

There was always the option of compelling her to forget once he had told her the truth.

Chloe did exactly what she had said she would and screamed, for the first ten minutes after Nathaniel had left her. As he had warned, no one heard her. At least she presumed they hadn't, because no one came down to the dungeon to either tell her to shut up or help her escape. All she had for her trouble was a sore throat.

After that, she had paced every inch of the cell looking for a way out. An utterly futile exercise when the walls were obviously solid rock, and the bars at the front of the cell were driven deep into the bedrock, top and bottom.

When those walls began to close in on her, Chloe retreated to a back corner of the small cell before sliding down to sit on the cold stone floor. She wrapped her arms about her knees as she fought the hysteria building inside her.

They were going to kill her.

Sooner or later.

Chloe had absolutely no doubts about that.

Because she had been stupid enough to tell Nathaniel exactly what theory she had regarding the nighttime activities at the castle.

Drugs or arms, either would be a multimillion-pound enterprise, and one none of the men living here would be willing to let a nosy woman put in jeopardy.

She was going to die.

Alone here in this dungeon, in all probability.

They didn't even have to waste a bullet on her, could just forget she was down here and let her starve to death.

Maybe they were already doing that. It had been almost an hour since Nathaniel left her here, and he hadn't returned yet with the food or water.

How long would it take her to die without either of them? Before her bodily organs began to break down and then ceased to function altogether?

Days?

Maybe a week, if she was unlucky enough to last that long?

But no longer than that.

Would some studious archeologist a couple of centuries from now, excavating at Pendragon Castle, one day find and unearth her skeleton in this dungeon? Would they carbon date her remains and puzzle over who she was and how she came to be here?

A shiver ran down the length of Chloe's spine just thinking about it.

Her father had done the best he could to take care of her after her mother died. But he'd had to work to support them both, meaning Chloe was left in the care of childminders a lot, both before and after school. Then he had grown sick while she was away at university doing her final year of a master's degree in journalism and publishing. She had wanted to drop everything and go home, but her father had insisted she had to finish her degree. He was so ill by the time she graduated, he'd lived only another two months. Chloe had been alone since then.

But she didn't want to die that way too. She—

Chloe stiffened as she heard the door open at the top of the stairs.

Oh God, she could hear the footsteps coming down those stairs now. Heavy, as Nathaniel's had been. But that didn't mean it was him. It could just as easily be the less likable Deryk, coming to take her, before putting her out of her misery.

Chloe stood up slowly, gaze riveted on the hallway as she waited to see which of the men it was.

Deryk, who wanted her dead, no questions asked?

Or Nathaniel, who kept his emotions hidden?

Her knees almost buckled beneath her in relief when it was Nathaniel who appeared and walked down the stone passageway toward her.

Which was totally screwed up when he was just as much her jailer as his brother was.

Nathaniel's eyes widened as he saw the way Chloe was pressed up against the back wall of the cell, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear. The pupils were so dilated, they were only circled with a thin band of sky-blue. She looked nothing like the fiery woman who had kicked him earlier. Or the responsive woman he had kissed, and wanted to go on kissing, such a short time later.

He scowled darkly as he saw the silver tracks where the tears had dried on her cheeks. Brave and fearless Chloe had been crying. Damn it, he had left the lights on, as he'd said he would, and he hadn't left her alone down here for very long.

Just long enough for him to regain control, not only of his dragon but of himself.

The evidence of those tears on Chloe's cheeks was enough to shatter that control. "What the fuck...?" He bent to place the tray he was carrying on the stone floor before taking the key from his jeans pocket and unlocking the cell door.

Chloe was on him before he'd even had chance to repocket the key, climbing up his body until her legs were locked about his waist and her arms tight about his neck. "Please don't leave me down here to die." There was a sob in her voice. "Please, Nathaniel!" Her arms tightened even more, and she buried her face against his throat, her whole body shaking.

Nathaniel's arms moved of their own volition, it seemed, until he had his hands curved about each of her ass cheeks. "No one is going to die," he snapped his frustration.

"Deryk said—"

"I don't give a damn what Deryk said," he rasped. "Now calm the fuck down," he instructed as she continued to shake in his arms.

She slowly lifted her head to look at him through tear-drenched lashes. "You spanked me when I swore."

His eyes narrowed. "Well, if you think I'm going to allow you to do the same to me, you're mistaken."

She tilted her head. "That doesn't seem very fair," she finally murmured, the color returning to her cheeks.

"Life isn't fair."

No, it really wasn't, Chloe acknowledged. Because if life had been fair, her mother wouldn't have died in a car accident twenty years ago. Her father wouldn't have died of cancer two years ago. She wouldn't have such lousy taste in boyfriends. And she sure as hell wouldn't be the prisoner of the most powerfully attractive man she had ever met.

She was once again surrounded by Nathaniel's seductive smell, a combination of the freshly turned earth, a pine forest, and heat. Until now, Chloe hadn't realized you could actually smell heat, but on Nathaniel, she could, that warmth enveloping and seducing her.

Because he felt hot too, reminding her of how cold she had become in the past hour. "I'm going to die of hypothermia if you leave me down here."

Nathaniel frowned. "I telephoned the inn and asked the landlord to send your things up here. I'm sure you must have brought some sweaters with you."

One more avenue of escape now denied her. The last avenue of escape now closed off to her.

Chloe had never felt as alone as she did right now. No family. No boyfriend. No close friends. Well, she had friends, from university, but they met on an ad hoc basis whenever they all had a free evening, which was only about three times a year. No one was going to even notice she was missing.

When— How had she allowed herself to become so focused on her career that her life had become virtually empty of everything else?

She knew how and she knew why. Because after the death of both her parents, she had been afraid. To love. To let anyone close enough to love her. To risk losing that person, as she had lost everyone else she loved.

Could she have chosen a worse time or place to have an epiphany?

Then she realized it was probably because it was the worst time and place and she was fearful for her life that she was having the epiphany at all.

And that she may have left it too late to do anything about it.
Chapter 6

She forced herself to meet the green glow of Nathaniel's gaze. "If you or Deryk are going to kill me, then you should do it now. It's cruel to give me false hope by keeping me alive."

"What the hell is this obsession you have with dying?" Nathaniel snapped.

"Deryk said—"

His mouth tightened. "Deryk is no longer here."

She blinked. "He isn't?"

"No. But I advise you not to start plotting ways in which you might persuade me to let you go," he added harshly. "Because it isn't going to happen."

Damn, that was exactly what Chloe had been doing. Something she had believed might be possible now that the dangerous Deryk was no longer in the picture. Nathaniel was scary, and that kiss had been...earth-shattering, if she was honest, but he had also been kinder than his brother.

Nathaniel reached up to peel Chloe's arms from about his neck, doing the same with her legs before his hands grasped her about the waist and he placed her back on her feet in front of him. She looked very young and very vulnerable.

Because she is very young and vulnerable, he chastised himself impatiently. Chloe was probably only aged in her mid-twenties at most, and he was over fifteen hundred years old. Chloe was a prisoner, and, much as he hated it, he was her jailer. That imbalance needed to be rectified.

He drew in a deep, controlling breath. "You and I need to talk."

"About why you have no choice but to kill me?"

"I swear to the Goddess!" Nathaniel broke off to run an agitated hand through the darkness of his hair. "I am not going to kill you." His impatience was barely held in check as he glared at her. "I— There's a possibility— Deryk believes— You could be my fated mate," he burst out.

Not surprisingly, Chloe looked confused by the statement. "Your what?"

How was he supposed to even start to explain who and what he was?

What she might be to him...

One thing was certain, his conscience would not allow him to make love to Chloe without her knowing the risks involved. And being with her again, touching her again, was enough for Nathaniel to know it was going to happen, sooner rather than later. It was taking every effort of will to stop himself from taking her right now.

Mine.

Nathaniel's jaw tightened at that now-familiar wild clamoring inside him. "What do you know about Arthur Pendragon?"

Chloe stared blankly at Nathaniel. Being locked in a dungeon made this situation surreal enough already, without his wandering off into the realm of fairy tale—drug-induced land? "Camelot? Merlin? Lancelot and Queen Guinevere? Knights of the Round Table? That Arthur Pendragon?"

His mouth twisted. "Most of that was the fanciful imaginings of poets and storytellers. There was no Camelot or Merlin. Or Guinevere, for that matter. Arthur never married—and he didn't sing either," he added with a disgusted reference to one of the movies he had seen featuring Arthur. "And the table he and his knights sat at while discussing war strategy was rectangular."

Chloe took a wary step back. She had thought Deryk was scary enough with his obsession of wanting to "fuck or kill her," or both. But Nathaniel's behavior now seemed to indicate he was high on one of the drugs he sold, and that made him as unpredictable and dangerous as his brother. But it would also go a long way toward explaining those over-bright green eyes.

"Arthur was my brother."

Yep, definitely high on his drug of choice.

"Most historians agree Arthur Pendragon didn't really exist," Chloe explained as carefully and evenly as she could, not wanting to antagonize him at the same time as her nerves were too tightly strung to humor him either.

Nathaniel snorted. "I assure you he did."

"And he was your brother?"

"Yes."

"That would make you how old?"

"Fifteen hundred and twenty-five."

"Right."

Green eyes narrowed. "My father was Uther Pendragon, and Arthur was my brother," he repeated firmly.

"And the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus used to come to tea on Sundays, along with the Tooth Fairy," she scorned. She knew it wasn't a good idea to antagonize someone who was high on drugs, but Nathaniel's fantasy was becoming ridiculous.

Nathaniel frowned. Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy? What the hell?

Chloe obviously didn't believe a fucking word he was saying!

His nostrils flared. "You would do well to listen and take me seriously, little girl."

Chloe's eyes widened as Nathaniel used that deep voice that seemed to reverberate off the walls and inside her head. "And you—and Deryk—would do well to stop calling me little girl." She inwardly admitted the voice was a neat trick, though. Even if this man and his brother were obviously living in a drug-induced la-la-land most of the time.

Arthur. Uther Pendragon. Knights of the Rectangular Table.

No, that really didn't work as well as the Round Table. Yay for fairy tales and Hollywood.

Chloe had never thought she would say or think this, but the weirdness of this conversation was making her seriously wish the bloodthirsty and sex-crazed Deryk hadn't left her alone with his even more demented brother.

She was totally screwed, Chloe realized heavily.

Left alone here at the mercy of a man who believed he was over fifteen hundred years old and the brother of King Arthur of Camelot. Except Nathaniel assured her Camelot hadn't existed. Or Merlin. Now that just wasn't acceptable. Merlin had always been her favorite character in the legend of Arthur.

And if Merlin didn't exist, then Chloe had news for Nathaniel—neither had Arthur Pendragon!

"Are you married?"

She blinked at the next abrupt change of subject. Although why she should be surprised after Nathaniel's previous remarks, she had no idea. "What?" she delayed.

"Are you married?" he repeated tensely. "Do you have any children?"

If she said yes to one or both those questions, would that make him more eager to kill her or less so?

Damn it, he was right; since Deryk first mentioned it, she had become obsessed with the idea of one of these men killing her.

Hello, I'm being kept a prisoner in a dungeon beneath an ancient castle by two men who are obviously drug smugglers!

Not just any castle, but Pendragon Castle...

Chloe's brow cleared as she realized the name of the castle could be the reason Nathaniel might have manifested the belief, in his drug-fogged mind, he was Arthur Pendragon's brother. It was still total nonsense, of course, but as hallucinations went, maybe not quite so off-the-wall as she had originally thought.

She reached out and patted his arm soothingly, doing her best to ignore that now-familiar tingle that made her nipples harden and between her thighs damp. Now was not the time for her to become sexually aroused. Even if Nathaniel was the hottest man she had ever met, and he kissed her like he wanted to draw her very soul from her body. Because he was also a little too fond of sampling the illegal drugs he brought into the country.

"I'm not married, nor do I have children," she answered him lightly.

His brows cleared. "Thank the Goddess."

Chloe quirked her brows. "Which goddess would that be?"

"My mother, Arianrhod, is the goddess of air, reincarnation, full moons, Karma and retribution," he supplied. "But there are others." He shrugged.

"Your mother was a goddess and your father was Uther Pendragon?" Chloe was having a little trouble keeping up as the fairy tale became wilder with each of Nathaniel's statements. She hoped he wasn't going to ask her questions later on, because no way was she going to be able to keep all this inside her head! Why waste the brain power when it was the ramblings of a drug addict?

He gave a rueful smile. "My mother is still alive, and so still a goddess."

"Arianrhod."

"Yes."

"So she's over fifteen hundred years old too?"

He smiled. "Much, much older."

"Where is she now?"

"She resides in the Otherworld on the Isle of Annwn."

"Which is where?"

"It's an island off the coast of Wales, but it's only visible to the fae who live there."

Of course it was. Silly her. "Does your mother being a goddess make you a god?"

Nathaniel shook his head. "It makes me a dragon shifter."

It had been a while since Chloe had eaten breakfast or had anything to drink, neither of which was helping her cope with Nathaniel's delusions. Although this fairy tale about mythical people was probably preferable to him seeing spiders crawling up the walls or snakes slithering across the floor. Chloe hated spiders and snakes, and might have had trouble dismissing them as easily as this fairy tale, imaginary or otherwise.

She released Nathaniel's arm. "Could I have the food and water you brought down with you, do you think?"

"Oh." His expression became rueful. "Of course."

Chloe took the opportunity to lean weakly against the wall while Nathaniel went back into the hallway to pick up the tray. She felt as if she was being sucked down a dark tunnel—or maybe it was more apt to call it a rabbit hole—and into Nathaniel's delusion. One where King Arthur had really existed, and he had a brother called Nathaniel—and consequently another one called Deryk?—who was over fifteen hundred years old and could turn into a dragon.

The tension, as well as the fear she was trying so hard to hide, was making her feel light-headed and a little nauseous.

She ignored the food on the tray but eagerly drank down the whole of the bottle of water. It didn't make Nathaniel's fantastical tale any more believable, but at least she was no longer thirsty.

"So." She placed the empty bottle back on the tray. "You and your brother Deryk were Arthur's brothers?"

He nodded. "There were ten of us, but now there are only eight of us remaining."

Eight of them?

There were eight battered suits of armor in the entrance hall, along with eight swords fixed to the wall behind them...

Chloe winced as she realized she was mentally enabling this rubbish. "What happened to the other two?"

His expression turned grim. "They were killed, one in the battle against Mordred, the other by dragon hunters."

"So Mordred existed too?"

"Yes."

"Dragon hunters...?"

He shrugged those impressively broad shoulders. "It became fashionable to hunt vampires and dragons during Victoria's reign."

"So all ten of you were—are, dragon shifters?"

He straightened. "Mostly we remain as men, but when necessary, we became Arthur's dragon army. We were born for the sole purpose of protecting him."

"And did Arianrhod have all of you at the same time or separately?"

"There were ten different goddesses, but we were all born within the same week."

Chloe gave a shake of her head. "And Uther was father to all of them?"

"Yes."

"Busy man."

Nathaniel's eyes narrowed at her derisive tone. "It was sorcery of a kind."

Of the magic mushroom kind, as far as Chloe was concerned. "What was he like?"

"Uther?"

"Arthur."

Nathaniel's smile was full of pride as well as affection. "As brave and chivalrous as the poets said he was."

"If he had all of you protecting him, how did he die?"

A frown appeared between Nathaniel's eyes. "As it was foretold that he would, in the Battle of Camlann."

"So you were only keeping him alive long enough to die?"

"When it was foretold he would die." He scowled darkly. "Arthur was too important to Welsh history to die before his time."

"Academics—"

"Have no idea what they're talking about," he dismissed scornfully. "Arthur existed and was the ancestor of Owain Gwynedd, the grandfather of Llewelyn the Great."

"I thought you said he didn't marry?"

Nathaniel eyed her mocking. "But I didn't say he didn't have any children."

"Ah." Chloe nodded, deciding she had heard quite enough of the mythical Arthur. "What's a fated mate?"

"The other half of my soul. The woman who completes me. The one who will bear my offspring."

Her brows rose. "Dragon babies?"

Nathaniel looked troubled. "We were all born human, but as none of us have met our fated mate yet, we're not really sure what our own offspring will be."

Whereas Chloe was one hundred percent sure this man was certifiable.

Hot. Sexy as sin. A great kisser. And completely fucking cuckoo.

Forget the story she had intended writing about the goings-on at Pendragon Castle, her main priority now was just to get out of here alive. She could inform the authorities of the drug smuggling once she was safely back in London. Far away from Nathaniel and his equally weird family.

Preferably before Nathaniel had another delusion in which he decided to make her a ritual sacrifice to his goddess mother, Arianrhod. After which Chloe would no doubt go to the invisible island of Annwn and meet up with Arthur and his Knights of the Rectangular Table. Except, no, Nathaniel had said she had to be fae to be allowed on Annwn.

If she could keep her hysteria to a manageable level, then she would probably laugh about all this one day!

If she managed to get away from here alive.

She eyed Nathaniel skeptically. "So, you can become a dragon whenever you feel like it?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

He glanced up at the low ceiling before shaking his head. "It isn't a big enough space."

Of course it wasn't. Because the poor, deluded man couldn't really turn into a bloody dragon. It was only the drugs he'd taken that were making him think he could.

Maybe it was time for a little sweet-talking. "If I come upstairs with you now, then we could go outside and you could change for me there." And she could run like hell the very first moment Nathaniel became in the least distracted.

"It's called shifting."

Again, silly her.

Nathaniel grimaced. "And it's still daylight."

"You can't shift in daylight? Like vampires can't go out in the sun?" Humoring Nathaniel was starting to make her feel as crazy as he was.

Because there was no such thing as vampires either!

It didn't help that he was now eyeing her as if she was the one talking hysterical nonsense. "Shifting in daylight runs more of a risk of us being seen by humans," he explained patiently.

Humans? As if he wasn't one himself?

"Remember the helicopters you said people had reported seeing at night?" He waited for her nod. "That was us, not helicopters."

Maybe it would be better if she encouraged Nathaniel to go back upstairs on his own. She could think about her own escape later. Right now, he seriously needed to sleep off the effects of the substance currently running through his veins.

"Chloe—"

"What the hell is that?" Chloe jumped back with a gasp as Nathaniel reached for her.

Not with his hand.

But with a shimmering silver-green and scaly claw.
Chapter 7

"Chloe." Nathaniel gently touched the cheek of the deathly pale woman currently lying on the sofa in the family sitting room where he had carried her after she fainted. "Come on, Chloe, it's time for you to wake up."

Nathaniel was very aware that he had done this to her, because he had mistakenly thought she believed what he was telling her.

She had looked skeptical when he first started to explain the situation to her, but then she seemed to take an interest. Her questions had been intelligent and focused. Because it had felt so good to talk about those things, to someone other than his brothers, Nathaniel had completely forgotten how incredulous it must all sound to Chloe, a human.

He'd known he couldn't shift completely, because the cell really was too small for his twenty-foot-tall dragon, but Chloe had seemed so interested, he had thought she might enjoy it if he did a slight shift.

She had taken one look at his claw before the color drained completely from her face, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, her knees buckled, and she began to crumple to the floor.

Nathaniel's fast reflexes had allowed him to catch her before she hurt herself hitting the solid rock floor.

That was when he'd realized, as he swung her up into his arms and carried her out of the cell and up the stairs, that Chloe's reaction to his partial shift showed she had only been humoring him. Playing for time as she asked him those intelligent questions, while no doubt plotting and planning a possible way of escaping. She hadn't really believed a word he told her.

Until he showed her his claw.

What the hell had he been thinking when he did that?

Had he been thinking?

With his cock, maybe, but not with his brain, that was for sure.

His dragon had been doing a little preen inside as Nathaniel spoke of their origins and the battles they had fought at Arthur's side.

And Chloe's perfume, her essence, had held him in its usual thrall. He'd relaxed his guard completely and enjoyed watching her mouth when she spoke to him. Imagining the pleasure, the heat, of having those full lips wrapped around his cock.

When he should have been paying more attention to what was in her eyes.

Fear.

Fear of him.

Nathaniel closed his eyes briefly as he acknowledged how crazy he must have sounded to her. Because if this wasn't the reality of his own life—Arthur, Arianrhod, Uther Pendragon, being over fifteen hundred years old, shifting to dragon—it would sound crazy to Nathaniel too.

"Nathaniel...?"

He opened his lids to find Chloe's eyes were also open and she was looking up at him with a mixture of confusion and a lingering of her earlier fear. It felt as if a knife was being plunged into his chest to see that emotion in her eyes when she looked at him.

Nathaniel gathered her up in his arms and held her tightly against his chest. "I don't— I never meant— Please don't be frightened of me."

Chloe was having trouble pulling her scattered thoughts together.

She'd had the weirdest dream. Something to do with King Arthur and his knights, goddesses and dragons, and an invisible island off the coast of Wales where the fae lived.

Obviously, she had blacked out while she was in the dungeon, and Nathaniel had found her like that and brought her back upstairs.

Was she frightened of Nathaniel?

Well, he had locked her up in the dungeon of this castle.

But he had also let her out again, because this room, the sofa she was lying on, were nothing like that cold and uncomfortable cell in the dungeon.

He also felt amazing as he held her close to him, his body so warm and yet firmly muscled, the strength of his arms about her making her feel cherished. Whatever aftershave he was wearing, citrus and the clean smell of pine, was invading her senses so that all she could see and feel was Nathaniel.

She ran her tongue over her lips before speaking. "You did lock me up."

The strong column of his throat moved as he swallowed. "I won't put you in the dungeon again."

"Promise?"

"Promise," he confirmed huskily.

Chloe sighed her relief. "I was in a car accident when I was five. Trapped alone in the car for hours after my mother died. It was dark. So small and dark." She gave a shudder. "Since then, I can't bear... Small and dark places make me feel..."

"It's okay," Nathaniel soothed. "Nothing is going to hurt you again, Chloe. I won't allow it."

He sounded so sure. Spoke with such authority. An authority that couldn't be doubted when it was backed up with such power of conviction. Except wasn't he the one who was trying to hurt her?

Something niggled at the back of Chloe's befuddled mind, a fleeting memory, as Nathaniel lifted his hand before curving the palm about her cheek. That memory remained just out of her reach, and slipped away completely the moment he stroked the soft pad of his thumb across her bottom lip.

His eyes looked deeply into hers. "May I kiss you?"

She should say no. Nathaniel and his brother had taken her prisoner, locked her up, and then left her alone in the dungeon for what had seemed like hours. Chloe knew it couldn't have been, though, because she could see the evening sun shining low into the room through the lead-light windows.

It was the fact Nathaniel had asked rather than taken, as they both know he could if he chose, that persuaded Chloe into nodding her head.

Nathaniel leaned over her, those chiseled lips as soft as she remembered from the last time he'd kissed her. Surprisingly so, when she could feel the leashed power in the tension of his chest as her hands trailed along the hard ridges of his muscles to grasp on tightly to his shoulders as he suddenly deepened the kiss.

Nathaniel was lost in pleasure at the first brush of Chloe's soft breath and the taste of her slightly parted lips. Those lips felt as soft and luscious as he remembered, tempting him, encouraging him to take more, when he had thought she would refuse him.

One of his hands moved to cup her nape and hold her in place as he licked and sucked, hearing the hitch in her breathing as he bit down on the softness of her bottom lip. His other hand moved down to capture her breast, squeezing gently before caressing along the curve of her waist and then lower still, until he was cupping the heat between her thighs.

Goddess...

The denim of her jeans was an unacceptable barrier, preventing him from touching her silky flesh, from being inside her. And he wanted some part of him inside her.

Mine.

Yes, this woman was his, and nothing, not an avalanche or a tornado, and certainly not a scrap of denim, was going to keep him from touching her as he wanted to touch her.

He deepened the kiss, eating her mouth with his, tongue slipping past her lips to invade and conquer all the wet heat inside. At the same time, he let one claw, just the one, break free, allowing him to slice through the denim and lace beneath as if they were butter.

He instantly retracted the claw so that his fingers could stroke the soft heat of her bare pussy. She was so wet, and he gathered up some of that wetness on his fingers to stroke the swollen and pulsing nubbin above. Chloe groaned into his mouth as he flicked his nail against her clit, once, and then again, before stroking lower.

He pushed one slicked finger inside her, giving a groan of his own as he felt how tight she was. His cock would never fit inside her if he didn't stretch her a little first. He began to thrust that finger inside her heat, waiting until her juices were flowing and she was stretched a little before adding another finger, and then repeating the process until he was able to thrust a third finger inside. He began thrusting in earnest, curving his fingers to stroke the spongy nerve endings inside her.

Chloe's fingers were tangled in the springy softness of Nathaniel's hair, holding him against her as their lips devoured each other. She was almost crawling into his lap, wanting to be closer still as Nathaniel's fingers caressed and thrust inside her.

Her hands clung on to his shoulders, nails digging into the hard flesh as she felt the swell of her release surging up inside her like an unstoppable tidal wave. Higher, and then higher still, until the release crashed over her in a seemingly never-ending blaze of hot pleasure.

Chloe wasn't sure, but she might have actually fainted again, because by the time she opened her eyes, Nathaniel was standing on the other side of the room and she was alone on the sofa.

Her head felt befuddled still, her memories all jumbled up.

She searched her brain for those memories.

Deryk's threats.

Being locked in the dungeon and left down there.

Nathaniel telling her a fantastical tale about Arthur Pendragon and—

Nathaniel knew the exact moment Chloe remembered everything that had had happened to her in the past few hours. He could see it in the shocked widening of her eyes as she scrambled up to sit in the farthest corner of the sofa away from him, her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped protectively about her knees.

Nathaniel had released her and moved away the moment he sensed she was starting to regain consciousness. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

Today had been horrendous for Chloe. All of it. Even their lovemaking just now shouldn't have happened. None of it should. For Chloe's sake, not his own.

He had heard and felt her pain earlier when she told him of the accident that had killed her mother and trapped Chloe inside the car with her for hours afterwards. He had felt the guilt for having locked her up in that small and cold cell, bringing those sad memories back to her.

Nathaniel had the ability to take those memories away, along with the things he had told her about himself, but now knew he shouldn't have. No matter how much he desired her, Chloe was not his. She did not belong to his dragon either. She never could. No matter what Deryk said, how desperate his brother was becoming, Nathaniel did not have the right to risk Chloe's life in a mating that could kill her.

She was human.

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw as he stepped forward into the sunlight, holding her gaze with his as he began to speak. "You fell and hit your head on a rock earlier, and I brought you inside the castle until you recovered." He spoke in his dragon's deep and mesmerizing voice as he sent the compulsion across the room. "Any other memories you have are a dream or a figment of your imagination from that bump on your head."

Nathaniel wished he didn't have to include their lovemaking in the things Chloe had to forget. Ideally, he would have liked Chloe to remember that. To remember him. But if he was going to do this, then every single memory after he had spoken to her outside the castle earlier today had to go. They were memories he should never have given her in the first place.

Chloe gave a pained frown, determined to remember rather than forget, as Nathaniel seemed so intent on her doing. Admittedly, she had felt slightly disoriented when she woke up a few minutes ago, but she didn't remember falling outside the castle earlier or hitting her head.

She would certainly never have imagined that cold cell in the dungeon.

She was also sure she couldn't have dreamed or imagined Nathaniel making love to her, that amazing climax.

The delicious ache of her muscles, inside and out, told her she hadn't.

She wasn't aware of any painful lump on her head as evidence she had fallen and hit it on a rock, causing her to have those wild hallucinations.

So if she hadn't imagined their lovemaking, and she hadn't fallen and hit her head, surely she couldn't have dreamed the things he had told her, either. Arthur. Uther. Arianrhod. Dragons.

Wouldn't it be better to let Nathaniel think he'd convinced her that conversation had never happened?

What about seeing the dragon claw?

Perhaps there was a logical explanation for that too? Such as Nathaniel having put something in the bottle of water he had brought down for her to drink. That could be responsible for her thinking she saw a dragon claw instead of a hand. It was certainly a more believable explanation than that he was really able to shift into a dragon.

Eight suits of armor and eight swords in the entrance hall for the eight dragon warrior brothers of Arthur Pendragon.

No!

This stopped now.

Nathaniel could not turn—shift, into a dragon. He was not the brother of Arthur Pendragon and not been part of the other man's dragon army. His mother was not the Welsh goddess Arianrhod. Nor was his father Uther Pendragon. He certainly wasn't over fifteen hundred years old.

No matter what Nathaniel might try to convince her of, she did remember everything he'd told her.

She also knew, despite the fact he seemed completely compos mentis now, that he had told her those things while under the influence of drugs.

Then why was he trying so hard to make her believe the conversation had never happened? It wasn't as if she would ever repeat any of it anyway. She gave a snort. No one would believe her if she did. She didn't believe it her—

Chloe gave Nathaniel a startled glance as a loud knock sounded on the wooden castle door. "Are you expecting visitors?"

"It will be someone from the inn delivering your things." Nathaniel's expression was grim as he strode from the room.

Chloe swung her legs down to the floor and sat up once she was alone. Which was when she also noticed the rip in her jeans. No, not a rip, she realized after giving it a closer look. The material had been cut clean through, her panties too, revealing—

Oh my God.

She remembered Nathaniel's hands on her bare flesh, inside her, and the intensity of her climax.

How had Nathaniel made such a precise cut in jeans? Perhaps he had a knife in his pocket? Or—

She could figure this all out later. Now might be her only chance to get away. She doubted Nathaniel would want to make a scene in front of a third party, and if she was quick enough, she might be able to make her escape with whoever had come up from the inn with her belongings.

She heard the murmur of male voices as she all but ran out into the entrance hall.

Two male voices, both of which she recognized.

"—to see Chloe before I leave."

"I've told you that isn't possible."

"Make it possible."

"I said it isn't possible," Nathaniel boomed in that reverberating voice that sent a shiver down Chloe's spine.

"Will you please tell Chloe I asked for her," the other man replied evenly.

"No," Nathaniel answered. "Now put the suitcase down and leave."

"Keith!" Chloe raised her voice as she reached the doorway in time to see him walking away.

He came to a halt before turning slowly, a slightly dazed expression on his face. He looked at her blankly for several seconds before questioning tentatively. "Chloe?"

"Yes." She pushed past Nathaniel, grabbing her suitcase from where Keith had obviously left it, and was out the door before Nathaniel could stop her. She took a firm hold of Keith's arm, having no intention of allowing him to leave without her.

The puzzled frown cleared completely from Keith's brow. "What are you doing here?" He shot Nathaniel a wary glance.

It was the question Chloe could have asked Keith, considering she had ended their relationship this morning. And she would ask him. Later. Once she was safely away from Pendragon Castle.

And Nathaniel.
Chapter 8

Nathaniel had taken one look at the blond-haired Adonis delivering Chloe's suitcase and claiming to be her boyfriend, and decided he didn't like him.

His dragon's kill, kill, kill had been equally as decisive.

Not that Nathaniel was going to go that far, but he had compelled the other man to leave. To his annoyance, Chloe's sudden appearance seemed to have circumvented that instruction.

No, it hadn't been Chloe's appearance that broke the compulsion. That hadn't occurred until she put her hand on the other man's arm.

What the fuck...?

As far as Nathaniel was aware, this had never happened before. Ever. A dragon's compulsion was powerful, unbreakable, which was the reason they rarely used it. And yet Chloe had broken it, and not even for herself, but for someone else. The man who claimed to be her boyfriend.

Nathaniel should have made his earlier questions to Chloe more specific, and not only asked her whether or not she had a husband and children.

Because she obviously had a boyfriend. A man who knew her intimately, from the expression of familiarity in his blue eyes.

More intimately than Nathaniel?

His nostrils flared, hands clenching at his sides, at the thought of this man touching Chloe, of his body inside hers.

Mine.

That inner shout came from Nathaniel this time rather than his dragon. The chivalrous thoughts he'd had earlier in deciding he had to let Chloe go were completely forgotten, to be replaced by a tide of jealousy that made him feel violent. A cold and merciless emotion that wrapped itself around his heart and wouldn't let go. Chloe was his, damn it.

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave yet."

Chloe had been so relieved to see a familiar face, even if it was Keith's, and to be outside the castle rather than inside it, she had momentarily forgotten they still had to get away from Nathaniel.

She turned slowly to face him, her chin tilted in challenge. "Keith and I are going back to the inn now."

"No."

"Yes."

"I don't think so," he drawled.

"You can't stop us." Even as she made the statement, Chloe knew she was wrong. Nathaniel had taken her prisoner quite easily earlier today, and she knew he was equally as capable of overpowering Keith. Keith looked fit enough, but he was nowhere near as muscular as Nathaniel. Or as fast.

Nathaniel gave a mocking smile. "I'm not trying to stop you going anywhere, I merely thought you would like to take your backpack and cell phone with you."

Damn, she had forgotten about them. Well, both those things were replaceable. "I can collect them another time."

"Why not now?" He indicated she should go back into the castle to get them.

Chloe didn't trust him to let them go if they delayed too much longer. "Why don't you go and get them for me, and we'll wait right here?"

Green eyes glittered with suppressed amusement at her obvious ploy to get him to go back inside the castle while she and Keith beat a hasty path down to the village. "I'm not sure where you left them," Nathaniel drawled.

"What the hell is going on, Chloe?" Keith was obviously tired of being ignored. "Who is this man? And why are you staying here with him?" he added suspiciously.

She linked her arm in the crook of his. "I'm not. I thought Mr.—Nathaniel," she absolutely refused to play to his fantasy and call him Pendragon, "was interested in sharing a story of the area with me, but I was wrong."

Keith nodded. "The landlord said you'd been asking a lot of questions. He also said you sent down for your things." He looked pointedly at the suitcase he had brought with him.

Chloe gave him a reassuring smile. "He must have misunderstood. I only wanted my camera from my room." She really didn't have time for Keith's misplaced jealousy right now. She was grateful to him for being the means of helping her to get away from Pendragon Castle, but it didn't change the fact their relationship was over.

Once she was back in the village, she was going to pay her bill, pack up her car, and leave, never to return. Keith could do whatever he wanted. She was leaving.

She turned back to the man standing in the doorway. "I have no idea where you've put them, so if you wouldn't mind getting them for me?"

Nathaniel's eyes narrowed at her tone. As a dragon, he was at the top of the food chain, bigger and stronger than any other predator. All animals, except some humans, knew better than to oppose him. But in the past the dragon's ability to compel had always controlled the most rebellious human.

The fact Chloe had broken his compulsion of the man who had introduced himself as Keith Watson with the touch of her hand made Nathaniel question whether or not he had successfully compelled Chloe to forget the things he'd told her about himself and his dragon brothers.

Or was her fear of him because she still believed him to be a drug or arms smuggler, who might or might not kill her for what she knew?

Yeah, that had to be it.

No human could resist a dragon's compulsion.

Some of the tension left his shoulders. "I'll only be a minute."

Chloe waited only long enough for Nathaniel to disappear inside the castle before she started to pull Keith toward the path leading down the mountain. "Move," she encouraged desperately when he seemed to be lagging behind.

"But your cell phone—"

"I'll buy a new one! For God's sake, move it, Keith," she snapped as he still made no effort to hurry. "The people at Pendragon Castle are—are— They're up to something illegal, I'm sure of it," she substituted for completely insane. "I'll explain it all once we're back in London—"

"I only just got here," he whined.

"Then stay and finish the rest of your holiday, but first let's get back to the village." Chloe stumbled and slid down the mountainside in her rush to reach the bottom, all the time giving anxious glances behind her in case Nathaniel was following them. "Then I'm packing my car and going home."

"I have no idea what's gotten into you," Keith complained as he finally kept pace with her.

Chloe wasn't a hundred percent certain what had happened to her at Pendragon Castle either. Most of it was too weird to repeat.

She did know she never intended coming back.

"Why didn't you go after her?" Dylan studied Nathaniel as if he was one of the specimens he occasionally studied under his microscope.

Dylan had returned to Wales within two days of Deryk leaving. Apparently all the brothers felt that any progress in regard to their fated mates was more important than taking down a Colombian drug dealer. Grigor had decided he was tired of negotiating and they would fire blast the lot of them, anyway. Something Deryk would no doubt enjoy.

The first thing Dylan had done when he returned was ask for an explanation of all that had taken place since Chloe first appeared on their mountain.

Nathaniel answered his brother's questions, but he really didn't care one way or the other. Chloe was gone, had willingly left with another man, and that was the end of it.

As Dylan said, he could have followed the two of them, but what would have been the point? Chloe couldn't wait to get away from him.

"She wanted to leave." Nathaniel lay stretched out on the couch in the office as he answered his brother dismissively. He hadn't been back into the sitting room since Chloe left two days ago. There were too many memories in there.

For the briefest time, as he and Chloe made love, Nathaniel had known joy unlike anything that came before it. The memory of it was still inside his head. He didn't need to go into the sitting room to relive it over and over again, like a never-ending movie excerpt permanently stuck on replay.

"Deryk is of the opinion you should either mate Chloe or kill her."

Nathaniel snorted. "And, as far as I'm aware, we don't make a habit of killing innocent humans because of an opinion. Besides, Chloe believes we're either illegal drug or arms dealers, not dragons."

Dylan gave a derisive shake of his head. He was as tall and muscular as Nathaniel, his coloring very Welsh: black hair, and eyes a deep sapphire blue. "You're positive she doesn't remember anything you told her about the eight of us?"

Nathaniel turned to glare at his brother. "Well, I haven't seen any newspapers with the headline 'Dragons found alive and well and living in North Wales,' have you?"

"Nate—"

"Dylan." He swung his legs to place his booted feet on the floor as he sat up. "If Chloe ever does remember any of that shit, she'll just think I'm insane as well as a criminal."

His brother winced "Well, you did lock her up in the dungeon."

"And we both know I did that to protect her rather than keeping her prisoner." Nathaniel stood up restlessly. "Deryk is becoming more and more unstable."

"Grigor is going to want a report from me this evening."

Nathaniel stared out the window but didn't really see anything, the misery of his thoughts all focused inward. "Everything is as it's always been, Dylan. Just us, in this bloody castle, with the occasional foray out into the world to deal with one of the bad guys." He sighed heavily. "The exact way it's been for fifteen hundred years."

"I'd like to do some blood work on you before I talk to Grigor."

"Fine." Nathaniel nodded, without turning.

"How do you feel?"

How did he feel? Empty. Completely fucking empty. No joy, no happiness, no anger, no anything. But he was also restless, and he still had that itching under his skin, as if his dragon wanted to break free of his control. To be able to vent all the emotions Nathaniel wasn't able to feel.

The problem with that was, Nathaniel knew, if he allowed his dragon free rein, it would focus on only one thing: finding Chloe and bringing her back here with him.

Nathaniel didn't think he would be able to let her go a second time.

"Like shit," he answered his brother honestly.

Dylan frowned his concern. "Has meeting Chloe made your dragon stronger or weaker?"

Nathaniel gave a humorless laugh. "Meeting Chloe has given me a permanent hard-on." His cock had been solid as a rock for the past forty-eight hours.

"You know what you have to do, don't you?"

"I tried that. It didn't help," he drawled. Half a dozen hand jobs gave him absolutely no relief and not a lot of pleasure either. How could they when as soon as his cock was spent, it sprang back up again, as rock hard and aching as before.

"I—" Dylan seemed conflicted. "We think Rufus might have found his fated mate before he died."

Nathaniel turned abruptly. "Whose we?"

His brother looked uncomfortable. "Grigor and I."

"Neither of you have ever mentioned this before..."

"No." Dylan didn't look happy. "Grigor and I discussed it and decided we couldn't be certain enough to give the rest of you false hopes."

"Grigor and you discussed it!" His eyes narrowed. "What the fuck right do the two of you have to keep information like that from the rest of us? And what do you mean, you think Rufus had found his fated mate?"

His brother sighed. "Do you remember the reason the hunters went after him?"

"He was my brother. Of course I remember!" Nathaniel scowled. "Somehow, Lord Haselmere and his little sect discovered Rufus's secret."

Dylan nodded abruptly. "The somehow was Haselmere's daughter, Rebecca."

"The mousy little thing that no one ever asked to dance?"

Through the centuries, the brothers had often played the part of society gentlemen, in one guise or another. Not so much in the twentieth century or this one, because two World Wars had pretty well destroyed the class system of Victoria's time. Nowadays, the brothers were happy just to live in their castle and do their security work.

"Except Rufus," Nathaniel now recalled with a widening of his eyes. "He sought her out several times at society functions the week before he died. Did Haselmere use his daughter as bait to entrap Rufus and kill him, is that what you're saying?"

"No." Dylan sighed heavily. "Grigor and I think Rufus was drawn to Rebecca because she was his mate. Did you know she died three weeks after Rufus was killed?"

"I... No, I didn't know that." Nathaniel had been too grief-stricken to notice much of anything after his brother died. "Was she ill because of grief after Rufus and her father...died?" They had taken their revenge on Haselmere and his followers within days of Rufus being killed.

"Not exactly."

"I don't understand..."

"None of us understands enough, that's the problem." His brother moved impatiently. "We... Grigor and I think that Rufus and Rebecca had either completed the mating or partially so. When Rufus died, Rebecca was taken ill with a fever she never recovered from."

"What sort of fever?"

"You know what it was like in Victorian times, so bloody prudish on the surface and a den of iniquity beneath it," Dylan dismissed disgustedly. "The Haselmere family described Rebecca's illness as a fever of the mind as well as the body."

"What does that mean?"

"Grigor and I believe it was a sexual fever brought on by the need to mate with Rufus, but Rufus was dead."

"Jesus..."

His brother nodded abruptly. "Without her mate, Rebecca's heart and body simply stopped."

"But she was human..."

"Yes."

Nathaniel sat down abruptly. "We're able to mate with humans?"

"Again, our information is too sketchy. The family wouldn't let me near Rebecca, and I'm not sure what I could have done even if they had. We simply didn't have the technology during that time for me to do the tests I can do now." He shrugged. "I do have a theory."

"Which is?"

"Somewhere in her family history, Rebecca had a dragon ancestor."

"Not related to us?"

"There were other dragons before us, Nathaniel, ones not birthed by a goddess and Uther Pendragon," his brother said dryly. "We still haven't ruled out other dragons existing now either. Just because we haven't found them doesn't mean they aren't out there. But we're getting off the subject," Dylan continued briskly. "You've admitted kissing Chloe, and even though your mating saliva wouldn't be as potent in your human form as dragon, and you didn't bite her— You didn't bite her, did you?"

"No." But he had wished many times, selfishly, during the past forty-eight hours that he had.

"Then you could have passed some of your saliva on to Chloe when the two of you kissed. If she is your mate, and she has that same weak dragon DNA we believe Rebecca had..."

Nathaniel's eyes widened. "Fuck."

"Exactly."

He flinched. "You think she might be suffering in the same way Rebecca did? In the way I am?"

"That's why Grigor sent me back here, so that I could decide that for myself. Until now, it's only been a theory, but... I'll need to do the in-depth blood work on both of you I couldn't do on Rufus and Rebecca before I can confirm that theory. But having witnessed your own suffering, the sexual tension, the listlessness, I think it's a possibility that the mating between you and Chloe has already begun, yes. If it has, you need to go to her as quickly as possible, bite her and—" He broke off with a pained wince.

"Fuck her?"

"I was going to say take her to bed, but yes, fucking would do as well," he conceded dryly. "Often and repeatedly, until the fever is at a manageable level."

Nathaniel's imagination had already given him a vision of a writhing and aching Chloe lying alone in a bed, tendrils of red hair clinging to the dampness of her forehead as her body was racked with a sexual fever that couldn't be assuaged.

But maybe she wasn't alone. Maybe that bastard Watson was with her. His enquiries had told him the two of them had left Wales together two days ago. Maybe the other man was touching Chloe even now. Pleasuring her. Attempting to give her the sexual release that belonged to Nathaniel.

Mine.

Yes, Chloe was his, damn it.

And from what Dylan had just told him, finishing the mating with Chloe might be a risk, but not mating her would definitely kill her.
Chapter 9

Chloe had no idea what was wrong with her, but she had been ill and in bed ever since she got back from Wales three days ago. She was hot and feverish. Her skin felt as if thousands of ants were crawling across and under it. She hadn't been able to sleep. Nor did she have an appetite.

Well...that last wasn't strictly true. She did have an appetite, but it wasn't for food or drink.

Her cheeks couldn't feel any more feverish than they already did, but if they could, they would have, after all the times she had pleasured herself to climax the past seventy-two hours.

Thank God she lived alone so there was no one around to see her in this state. It was also as well she worked freelance, because she would never be able to be in a work environment in this constant state of arousal, suffering the need for a climax that somehow never quite gave her the satisfaction she craved.

She was actually sore between her legs and on her breasts from the amount of times she had rubbed her clit and stimulated her nipples.

She'd managed to get out of bed and change the sheets on her bed and take a warm bath earlier. The bath had helped soothe her for a while. Until she began to ache again and half the bathwater slopped over the side as she arched and thrashed from the power of reaching yet another climax.

Chloe had no idea what was wrong with her. She had never heard of an illness where one of the symptoms was a need for sex and more sex. Unsatisfactory sex, at that, because as soon as one climax was over, the ants-on-the-skin feeling came back and she began to ache and throb to be filled.

At first she'd wondered if it was a side effect of the drug she suspected Nathaniel of putting in that bottle of water he had given her to drink. But she'd checked online for the side effects of every drug imaginable, legal and illegal, and none of them listed turning into a nymphomaniac as being one of those side effects. Aphrodisiacs did exist, of course, and she could believe Deryk might have slipped something like that into her drink. She didn't think Nathaniel would, though.

Which might be naïve of her.

Just because she had found Nathaniel attractive and responded to him physically—even before the drug-in-the-drink—didn't mean he wasn't capable of drugging a woman for sex.

Whatever the reason for the painful increase in her libido, she was going to have to weather it out until the effects wore off. Which wasn't as easy as it sounded when she felt so needy for sex all the time. She'd even thought of calling Keith at one point, but then remembered she had made it clear to him, once they were back in London, that it was over between the two of them.

Besides, it wasn't Keith she thought of when she touched her nipples and rubbed her clit.

It was Nathaniel.

Scary, slightly strange, and maybe a drug smuggler, Nathaniel.

Chloe hadn't been able to get the man out of her mind. Not even for a minute.

It was his hands she imagined cupping her breasts.

His fingers pulling on her nipples and caressing between her legs.

His name she cried out every time she climaxed.

She was going quietly—and sometimes not so quietly!—insane. Caught in a fever of lust that wouldn't be satisfied, no matter what she did. It was—

Chloe gave a pained groan when she heard the doorbell to her apartment ring. Although it did put an end to her troubled thoughts for a few seconds, at least. Not that she was going to open the door looking like she did. She had been clean several hours ago, had even managed to wash her hair while in the bath, but a lot had happened in the two hours since then. The T-shirt she wore to bed was sweaty and damp, and she was irritable from lack of sleep and this continuous need for sexual release, followed by the inevitable frustration.

She pulled the duvet over her head when the doorbell rang a second time. Whoever it was could just go away. If she was going to die of a sexual overload, then she wasn't about to let anyone see her do it—

Chloe sat up in alarm as she heard the splintering of wood followed by a loud thud as something—her apartment door?—banged forcefully against a wall. Chipping away some of the plaster, by the sound of it.

"Chloe!"

What the—

"Chloe, where the hell are you?"

Nathaniel?

No, it couldn't be. He was still in Wales. He had no idea where she lived, anyway. Besides, why would he be here? Unless...

Tears stung her eyes as she realized Deryk might have returned to the castle after she left with Keith and demanded Nathaniel find her and silence her once and for all. Although in her present state, that might be a blessing. Chloe certainly had no strength left to fight him, if that should prove to be the case.

"Chloe!" Nathaniel, looking ominous in a black T-shirt and black jeans covering that tall and muscular body, suddenly filled the space of the doorway to her bedroom.

His dark hair was disheveled, his face deathly white, green eyes glittering.

Glowing?

Chloe closed her eyes. Not again! She was already insane with lust. She didn't need any of that other shit muddling up her head again.

The bed dipped beside her before she was gathered up in a pair of strong arms and crushed against a muscular chest.

Nathaniel's chest.

He really was here.

Nathaniel felt all the tension and emptiness of the past few days evaporate the moment he held Chloe in his arms again.

Home.

That was what she was to him now, he realized. The void that had been inside him all his life, and which had been even more intense these past few days, was completely filled by simply holding Chloe in his arms.

She couldn't seem to control her trembling. "Did you break the door to my apartment?"

"Only the lock."

"In that case, you can pay to have it fixed." She glanced up at him. "Are you here to kill me?"

"I swear to the Goddess, I am going to tan your bare backside if you say that one more time," he breathed out shakily.

She glanced up at him with feverish eyes. "The way I'm feeling right now, it would be a welcome relief if you would kindly put me out of my misery."

Nathaniel gave a choked laugh, happier than he could possibly describe at hearing Chloe's sarcasm again.

But he wasn't at all happy to see her in such obvious discomfort.

He pulled back slightly. Chloe looked every bit as distraught as he'd imagined she might after he had talked with Dylan. Her hair stuck to her temples and nape, her cheeks were flushed, and her body was burning up with fever. Lust fever? It certainly looked that way. "How long have you been like this?"

She groaned. "Ever since I got back from Wales."

Dylan was right. He and Chloe had kissed, and the mating had already begun. And if Chloe felt even half as bad as he did, then she was in extreme discomfort. A discomfort that could only be assuaged by the two of them having sex together. As often as Chloe could take it.

All he had to do now was explain to her what was happening, and the way to stop her feeling like this.

All?

Telling Chloe the only thing that might make her feel better was having sex with him sounded suspicious to Nathaniel. He could only guess how it was going to sound to Chloe.

"Which reminds me." She roused slightly. "You owe me a new pair of jeans and panties as well as a new lock on my apartment door."

Because she now knew he had sliced through the pair of jeans and panties she was wearing in Wales.

"Did you put something in the bottle of water you gave me?" Chloe sounded as miserable as she'd said she was.

"No." His arms tightened about her. "Chloe, I'm not sure if you can remember the things I told you in Wales." She'd broken his compulsion on Watson, so there really was a good chance Nathaniel hadn't managed to use compulsion on her either.

Yet another sign she was his fated mate?

"Chloe?"

"Arthur and dragons," she mumbled tiredly, leaning heavily against his chest.

"Arthur and dragons," he said ruefully, his suspicion confirmed. "And fated mates," he reminded her softly.

"And fated mates." Her words were becoming slurred.

"I... Dylan and I... He's my brother, remember?"

She gave a studied nod. "One of the seven you still have, yes."

"Yes." He smiled. She remembered every bloody thing he'd said to her. "We both believe you're my fated mate, Chloe."

"That's nice."

"Is it?" he prompted warily.

"I don't know, is it?" she mumbled.

"Chloe—" He stopped speaking as she slumped completely in his arms and he heard the soft snuffling of her breathing.

A glance down showed him she had fallen into an exhausted asleep.

Chloe had no idea what time it was when she woke up or how long she'd been asleep. The bedside lamp was on, throwing a warm glow over her bedroom, so it was probably late evening.

The important thing was she felt more refreshed and was no longer burning up with a fever.

She also wasn't alone in her bed.

A warm—and very male—body, was curled against her, spoon fashion. There was a strong arm draped about her waist, a hard and muscular chest against her back, and a definitely bigger than average bulge nestling against her bottom.

Nathaniel.

Chloe was starting to remember now. She had been burning up with fever and desire—again. Feeling those ants on and under her skin—again. Nathaniel had come bursting into her apartment, breaking the lock and chain on her door in the process, and appeared in her bedroom doorway seconds later.

Things became a bit hazy after that. Chloe remembered him taking her into his arms. How the feeling of ants beneath her skin had seemed to ease a little. How tired she had suddenly felt.

She also remembered him saying something about Arthur and the dragons and fated mates. Again.

If Deryk had told Nathaniel he had no choice but to kill her, to silence her, then he really needed to get on with it and stop with the fairy tales.

"I know you're awake," Nathaniel murmured close to her ear. "You're thinking so loud, I can hear you."

"What am I thinking, then?"

"What's this man doing in my bed?"

Chloe chuckled tiredly. "That was too easy."

"It was," he conceded softly. "Feeling any better?"

"A little." She rolled over in his arms so she was facing him, the palms of her hands flat against his bare chest, her own naked thighs telling her he was still wearing his jeans. "What's wrong with me, Nathaniel?" She looked at him searchingly, easily noting the way his gaze suddenly refused to meet hers. "Why did I start to feel better the moment you held me in your arms?"

He winced. "I'm not sure."

"Then what are you sure of?"

"Do you want an honest answer or one that means you aren't going to get pissed at me?"

"What makes you think I'm not already pissed at you?" she derided. "You did break down my door, and now you're in bed with me," she reminded him.

He nodded. "Good point."

"So?" She looked at him expectantly.

"Before the ten of us left Annwn—"

"Not again." Chloe pushed against his chest to free herself before sliding to the side of the bed and standing, her sleep T-shirt ending mid-thigh. "You're like a broken record, you know that?" She glared down at him, clenched fists resting on her hips. "I'm not in the mood to listen to any more of your fairy tales, so just kill me now— Whoa," she murmured as her vision blurred and she swayed on her feet, the room tilting sideways.

Nathaniel was out of bed and had moved round to where Chloe stood almost before she'd had chance to grab hold of the bedside cabinet to stop herself from falling.

The moment Nathaniel's hands grasped hold of Chloe's arms, her vision cleared and the light-headed feeling passed. To her embarrassment, her nipples had also hardened and were clearly visible beneath her T-shirt. "What the hell is going on?" Her voice rose angrily.

Again, Nathaniel couldn't be certain, but he believed Chloe's dizziness had started the moment her body was no longer in contact with his. Her nipples had also hardened, and every time he drew in a breath, he inhaled the scent of her rapidly increasing arousal.

He eased his grip slightly but maintained a hold of the tops of her arms. "Before I can explain any of this, and hopefully have you believe me, I need to show you something. But I need your promise you aren't going to faint again."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Are you going to do something weird?"

"Such as?"

"Drug me again and then convince me I can see a claw instead of your hand."

"I didn't drug you, Chloe."

"Then why am I like this?"

Nathaniel lowered his gaze. "I'm guessing it's from my saliva."

"Ew." Her nose wrinkled with distaste.

He drew in a deep breath. "When a dragon meets his fated mate, he secretes an aphrodisiac in his saliva that's transferred into her bloodstream when he bites her to complete the mating. I haven't bitten you, but I have kissed you, so there's a possibility—more than a possibility—"

"Biting me?" She suddenly seemed to realize what he'd said. "Bite me where?"

"On the back of the neck."

She heaved an obvious sigh of relief that it wasn't somewhere more intimate. "On the back of the neck?" Her expression had sharpened. "Does that mean...?"

"That I mount you from behind and then—"

"Stop!" she cried. "Just stop this now. You did not infect me with a dragon aphrodisiac and now intend to mount me like an animal."

He winced. "I prefer not to think of it as infecting you. It will be me that...makes love to you, not my dragon, but the bite that completes the mating has to be while I'm inside you and on the back of the neck, which means—"

"No." She gave a firm shake of her head. "This is not happening. None of what you've told me is true. Nor did I see some big-ass claw!"

Nathaniel sighed. "Yeah, you did. The aphrodisiac exists. My dragon exists. You did see my claw. And I'm going to show it to you again if I can't convince you any other way I've been telling you the truth all along."

All the color drained from her cheeks, but she didn't pull away from him. "It was real?"

His expression softened. "I think you already know that it was." He knew a part of Chloe was too logical and focused to truly believe she had imagined his partial shift, as much as she might wish to.

She swallowed. "King Arthur and the Knights of the Rectangular Table?"

He held back his smile with effort at her fixation on the shape of that table. "Also real."

"Annwn, Welsh goddess for a mother, Uther Pendragon for a father, ten brothers including you, two of whom have died, all of whom can also shift into dragons?"

"Yes."

Her breathing had become very shallow. "No helicopters bringing in illegal drugs, but dragons flying at night so they aren't seen by the humans?"

"Yep." She had remembered it all.

"Fated mates?"

"Oh yes." Nathaniel nodded, keeping a close eye on her in case she freaked out on him again.

"This is... That is so..." Her gaze sharpened. "It's this aphrodisiac you infected me with that's responsible for how I've been feeling the past three days?"

He winced. "How have you been feeling?"

"Like a nymphomaniac on speed! Did your saliva do this to me?" she accused.

"If it's any consolation, it did the same to me."

Her eyes widened. "You've been aroused for the past three days too, but can't find any relief?"

"Yes."

"Good," she said vehemently.

Nathaniel bit his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing. Again. The situation wasn't in the least funny, and yet Chloe's vengeful pleasure in knowing he had also been suffering somehow made it so.

"Well, whatever you did to cause...this...aphrodisiac in your saliva. Whatever. You can damn well undo it. Right now."

He sobered. "I think it's already gone too far."

"What has?" Chloe's impatience was barely contained.

"Our mating."

"You haven't bitten me yet."

"No," he acknowledged softly. "But the fact you're in this condition shows the mating has already begun."

Her chest expanded as she drew in a deep and angry breath. "You mated me without so much as consulting me?"

"To be fair, you mated me without consulting me either." The bite on the back of her neck during sex would seal the deal.

"I did no such thing!"

"Not intentionally, no. I didn't think it was possible to mate with a human woman. Which means..."

"Yes?"

"You must have some dragon DNA in your blood—"

"Enough," she stopped him. "I'll have you know I come from good Welsh stock originally, not dragons."

Nathaniel held up calming hands, only to put them back on Chloe's arms as her face once again lost all color and she swayed on her feet. The aroma of her arousal instantly deepened too.

"What is that?" she demanded.

"That's what we're trying to find out."

"And how do you intend to do that?"

"You have to come back to Wales with me so that my brother Dylan can do some blood tests on both of us," he stated calmly.

"And I suppose you're going to fly me there on your dragon back?" she taunted.

"Well, I could, yes," he answered dryly. "But I actually drove here, so it's probably better to go back that way too."

"Of course you drove here." She snorted. "Well, I have no intention of going anywhere with you, let alone giving any of my blood to another one of your no-doubt strange brothers."

Nathaniel's eyes narrowed. "The last woman who suffered the same fever as you're going through now died within three weeks of being parted from her mate," he told her grimly.

"You are not my mate!"

"So how do you explain this?" He released her, and she instantly paled and swayed on her feet. "Well?" It was killing him to let her suffer, even a little bit, but he had to make his point. This was too important not to. Chloe's life was too important.

"I can't," she acknowledged miserably.

Nathanial took a light grasp of her arm, instantly steadying her. "You're coming back to Wales with me, whether you want to or not. Make sure you pack warm clothing. And once we're there, you're also going to agree to whatever tests my brother says you are."

"You can't make me do anything—"

"Watch me," he bit out grimly. "And don't think for one moment I've forgotten what I promised would be your punishment if you accused me again of wanting to kill you."

Chloe's eyes widened as she remembered exactly what Nathaniel had promised to do to her if she made that accusation again. Which she had, almost as soon as she woke up.

The cheeks of her bottom tensed at the thought of that punishment.

And the arousal deepened between her thighs, her labia swelling and becoming slick with her juices.

She really was totally screwed.

Chloe hadn't thought she would ever return to Pendragon Castle. But then, she'd never thought she would see Nathaniel again either, and she had been wrong about that too. Very much so. Because if Nathaniel wasn't touching her in some way, then that feeling of ants crawling beneath and across her skin became utterly unbearable.

It was the only reason she'd agreed to return to Wales with him, to be honest. She still thought the rest of his story was questionable.

But there was no denying her lust fever only became bearable if Nathaniel was touching her. After three days of that torment, Chloe was too relieved at its cessation to care what she had to do to stop it, as long as it stopped.

Nathaniel had the supervisor of her apartment building fit a new lock on her door before they left London, and then drove the two of them back to Wales in his black SUV. He kept his hand on her thigh during the long drive and held her hand in his once they reached the castle and she was introduced to Dylan. The Pendragon men were certainly a handsome lot. Maybe Chloe was biased, but she still thought Nathaniel was the most handsome of the three brothers she'd met so far.

So far?

Oh yes, because Nathaniel had told her she was going to meet all the brothers later tonight when they flew back from Colombia. Not by public plane or private jet, but using their own wings. Although Nathaniel informed her they weren't technically wings, like a bird has wings, but leathery membranes attached to their strong shoulder muscles so that they could lift and fly their own weight.

Chloe still felt as if she was trapped in an alternate universe.

Oh, she couldn't deny her reaction if Nathaniel wasn't touching her in some way, but all this other stuff was still a lot to take in. Or believe.

"I'll need both of you to come back for fresh tests once the two of you have had sex," Dylan spoke distractedly as he wrote their names on the two vials of blood he had taken from each of them.

"Excuse me?" Chloe eyed him incredulously. She had been willing to go along with this delusion in order to find out what was wrong with her—especially as the whole family seemed to be in on it—but Dylan was getting way too personal.

"I'll need to monitor any changes in the blood after—"

"I heard you the first time," she snapped. "It's the casual way you're talking about Nathaniel and me having sex that I'm objecting to."

"You need to complete the mating," Dylan insisted.

"No, I really don't." Chloe shook her head. "We can have sex without completing the mating, right?"

"Well, yes..."

"Then that's what we'll do. If we have sex," she added uncomfortably.

"But why would you want to?"

Chloe eyed him incredulously. "You've been spending too much time bent over your microscope if you think I'm going to let anyone have sex with me and bite me on the back of my neck hard enough to draw blood."

Dylan gave her a skeptical glance. "And you really think Nathaniel is going to be able to have sex with you without biting you?"

"If he wants to have sex with me, then I really think he'd better damn well try."

"Good luck with that."

Her hands clenched at her sides. "Listen here, you smug bastard, I've gone along with this damned delusion quite long enough. No one is biting me anywhere—"

"I want you to come up onto the roof with me. Now." Nathaniel took a firm hold of her hand and dragged her out of Dylan's laboratory.

Chloe scowled at him, still annoyed with his equally as delusional brother. "I'm really not in the mood to gaze up at the stars."

"That wasn't my intention either."

Chloe felt a lurch to her stomach as she recalled what Nathaniel had told her happened on the roof once it was dark. "You're going up there to change into a dragon?"

"Yes." Nathaniel wasn't sure if it was a male—or dragon—thing, but he wanted the first dragon Chloe saw to be his own rather than his brothers' when they returned later tonight.

The pupils in Chloe's eyes had dilated so that there was only that ring of sky blue. Revealing her fear? Possibly. But if it was, he knew the fiercely brave Chloe was never going to admit to the emotion. Or it could just be that she still didn't believe him.

"I'll still be me in dragon form," he continued briskly. "I can hear you and talk to you as I do now."

"A talking dragon?" she said doubtfully.

He shrugged. "I'm dragon, the dragon is me."

She didn't look reassured. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No," Nathaniel conceded dryly, having no idea what Chloe's reaction was going to be when confronted by his twenty-foot-high dragon. "But I do think it's the only way to convince you I'm telling you the truth."

"And what am I supposed to do when you go psycho on me because your delusion has been broken?"

She really didn't believe him!

After all that had happened, along with her own unexplained burning fever and constant arousal, she still thought he was delusional? Un-fucking-believable.

"Just come with me." Nathaniel's impatience was barely held in check, and he kept a firm hold of her hand as they took the staircase up onto the roof area.

"Wow," Chloe murmured as she looked around the massive space on top of the castle lit by a dozen or more strategically placed lights aimed at a round circle with a big H in the middle of it. It certainly looked like other helicopter pads she seen.

"Our enhanced eyesight means we don't really need the marked pad or the lights," Nathaniel explained. "The fact that we have them adds to the illusion of helicopters landing if the authorities come sniffing around."

For once, Chloe said nothing. She was too busy worrying what was going to happen when Nathaniel didn't shift into a dragon.

There was also the problem of him having to let go of her hand to step onto that H of the helicopter pad. Which was every bit as uncomfortable as she had thought it would be.

Chloe sat down on part of the crenelated wall surrounding the space on the roof of part of the castle, arms wrapped around herself as she fought off the shivering and discomfort as Nathaniel moved to stand on the H. "Go ahead." The sooner they got this over with the better.

One second she was consumed by her own misery and looking at six-and-a-half-feet-tall Nathaniel, the next the air shimmered in front of her, and she was staring up at a towering iridescent silver-green dragon.

A dragon that gazed back at her with Nathaniel's intelligent green eyes.
Chapter 10

To Chloe's relief she didn't faint this time. She rose to her feet in surprise, but she didn't faint. Maybe she was in too much shock to be able to? Or maybe it was that the dragon—Nathaniel—was so beautiful, he took her breath away? Fierce and huge, admittedly, but fearsomely beautiful at the same time.

"Are you able to breathe fire?" That was her first question? Well, yes. Because the truth was she was in shock. Deep shock. The sort where stupidity reigned rather than any sense of self-preservation.

He chuckled throatily. "Yes. But I won't do so now," he assured her. The voice was deeper than Nathaniel's normal tone, but it was still recognizably him, when he used that compelling voice to get his point across.

The dragon was Nathaniel.

Nathaniel was the dragon.

Chloe moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Can I touch you?"

"Please."

Chloe's emotion had turned to awe of the magnificent creature standing in front of her. Twenty feet tall, with a huge scaled head: those familiar green eyes, a long snout, with a wicked row of sharp teeth top and bottom of the huge jaw. Massive wings were folded against its—Nathaniel's—sleek back, front legs tipped by the long and lethal claws she had already seen once. The back legs were thicker and much more powerful, with a long tail as thick around as her waist that could no doubt do a fair amount of damage on its own.

She deliberately didn't look anywhere intimate; she didn't need to know if Nathaniel was as aroused in his dragon form as he had been when human.

Nathaniel is a dragon.

Chloe's gaze returned to those deep green eyes. "It's really you."

"Yes."

She reached out and touched the shiny silver-green scales running down his side. Touching the dragon filled her with the same calm as touching Nathaniel. The firm flesh quivered and warmed beneath her hand.

"My dragon desires you too," he admitted unapologetically when Chloe gave him a questioning glance.

Her eyes widened. "I hope you don't think I'm going to—"

"No." A chuckle rumbled in his huge chest. "What I feel in human form, my dragon feels also. When I make love to you as a human, my dragon makes love to you too."

"Phew." Chloe breathed a sigh of relief. "You really are beautiful." She sounded as awestruck as she felt.

The ruff rippled down the back of his long neck.

In pleasure at her compliment?

Chloe believed so. This was incredible. Nathaniel was incredible.

And everything she had believed about the world up to this moment in time had been firmly tipped on its ass.

She had no choice now but to believe Nathaniel had been telling her the truth all along. His mother was the goddess Arianrhod. His father had been Uther Pendragon. He had been alive for fifteen hundred years.

Dragons were real. The Welsh Otherworld, Annwn, existed too, even if it was an invisible island. Which meant Arthur and his Knights of the Rectangular Table had also been real, and Arthur was the half brother of Nathaniel and his dragon brothers.

Does that also mean I'm meant to be the fated mate of a dragon shifter? That I have some dragon DNA?

A bubble of hysteria rose up inside her but was quickly quelled.

This was too awesome, Nathaniel was too awesome in dragon form, for her to go into panic mode now.

She couldn't stop touching that leathery silver-green skin. "Are there other...mythical creatures that really exist in the world too?"

If it was possible for a dragon to wince, then that was what Nathaniel did. "There's an unwritten rule... Myths often have substance in reality," he amended guardedly.

"In other words, yes," Chloe said dryly. "Vampires? Werewolves? Other shifters?" A tiger shifter would be incredible to see. She had always had a special place in her heart for tigers, at the same time as she knew it would be capable of ripping her throat out or killing her with one swipe of its claw. A little like Nathaniel in dragon form...

Nathaniel's silence now spoke volumes.

"You know," she said casually, "I've never really been into older men, and almost fifteen hundred years is a lot older, but I might be willing to make you an exception."

He gave another chuff of laughter. Which, Chloe freely admitted, was decidedly unnerving coming from a dragon the height of a house.

Nathaniel seemed to sense some of her unease. "I'll never hurt you, Chloe."

She didn't think he would. Even in human form, his strength was formidable, but she realized now he had never used it against her in the way he could have.

"Seen enough?" he prompted at her silence.

Chloe wasn't sure she would ever get tired of looking at the magnificent creature in front of her, but she accepted she and Nathaniel needed to talk rather than Chloe and the dragon. Well...Nathaniel needed to tell her what he knew about this fated mates thing, and Chloe needed to listen this time, something she hadn't really been doing because she'd thought he was off his head on drugs.

She gazed up at the starlit sky. "It's beautiful outside. Can we stay up here for a while and talk?"

"Of course." Nathaniel nodded, knowing he and his dragon had chosen their mate and mother of their offspring well. Most women—human women—would have run off screaming into the night when he shifted, and never looked back. Not his indomitable Chloe. Now that she had seen the truth with her own eyes, she wasn't about to run away from him or his dragon.

He had seen his brothers shift enough to know what Chloe would see next. A shimmer of iridescent silver-green in the air, and seconds later, Nathaniel standing in front of her, once again dressed in black T-shirt, jeans, and boots.

"Amazing," she breathed softly as she once again sat on the crenelated wall edging the roof. She tilted her head. "Your eyes are green, and so is your dragon. So am I right in thinking Deryk's dragon is gold and Dylan's blue?"

Intelligent too. "You are." He nodded. "We're all different shades of our eye color. Except Grigor. He's red," he explained at Chloe's questioning glance.

"Like the dragon on the Welsh national flag?"

"Yes. He was also born first."

"Maybe a sighting of him in the past is the reason for the red dragon on the flag?" Chloe mused. "After all, he's been around fifteen hundred years too."

Nathaniel grinned. "I'll mention it to him." He could easily imagine his stern eldest brother's disgust at the suggestion he had ever allowed himself to be seen in dragon form by humans. Not by humans who would live to tell the tale, anyway. That thought sobered Nathaniel. "Were you scared?"

"Shocked, to begin with," she admitted. "But it—you, are so incredibly beautiful and powerful, it's impossible not to just gaze at you in awe."

"Thank you," he accepted gruffly.

The two of them sat in silence for several more minutes, Nathaniel because he was waiting to hear what Chloe had to say next, Chloe because she seemed to be trying to collect her thoughts before speaking again.

"So," she finally broke that silence. "What do we do now?"

"Well, I suggest we wait and see what, or if, Dylan finds anything in our blood, before and after..." He broke off with a wince.

"Before and after sex?"

"Yes." There was no point in Nathaniel lying to her. "I'd also like to take you to my cave."

She blinked up at him. "Your cave?"

"It's in Iceland."

As far as Chloe was concerned, this conversation was becoming surreal again. Yes, she was totally in awe of Nathaniel's ability to become dragon, and the idea of being his fated mate wasn't as scary as it had once been either. But this idea she was going to have sex with him just so his brother could take another lot of blood from both of them wasn't particularly romantic. In fact, it was far too clinical for her liking.

She didn't have too many hopes and dreams when it came to her life partner, having dated too many duds in the past. But she didn't think it was asking too much to hope the two of them would actually have spent some time together getting to know each other, were maybe in love, before they decided to spend the rest of their lives together.

As for going to Nathaniel's cave in Iceland with him...

She gave a cold shiver at the thought of it.

Nathaniel chuckled softly as he saw that shiver. "My cave is volcanic rock. It's also summer, and there's a hot spring in the center of the cave if you feel cold."

Her eyes lit up. "A hot spring? Really?"

He nodded. "It's also dry and habitable all year round." He'd keep his dragon eating raw fish to himself for now. He would spend most of his time in human form this time anyway, and there was plenty of kindling and firewood locally. They could easily make a fire for cooking.

"This is your dragon cave, right?"

"It is."

"Do you keep all your treasures there? Hey, you said there's some reality to the myth," she rebuked as he snorted.

"I keep some of my treasures there." He gazed at her without blinking. "In future, you will be my greatest treasure."

Chloe's eyes widened, a delicious shiver of anticipation running the length of her spine. Maybe it wasn't necessary for them to spend a lot more time getting to know each other before they went to bed together, at least.

Except...

This fated mates thing wasn't emotional, but seemed to be as a result of something in her blood that appealed to Nathaniel's dragon.

Was that enough reason to go to bed with someone, let alone consider the possibility of a lifetime relationship?

Considering the number of couples who married because they thought themselves in love and who later divorced each other due to incompatibility, perhaps the dragon's way was more reliable.

Besides, sitting next to Nathaniel wasn't enough to quell the desire once again rising within her and needing to be assuaged. She'd heard of an itch needing to be scratched, but this skittering of ants-beneath-the-skin feeling was unbearable. Maybe once she and Nathaniel had sex, that itching would stop.

"I really don't want you to bite me the first time we have sex together."

"I'll try not to. But I can't make any promises," he added apologetically.

"You have to more than try, Nathaniel. I can't... I don't know you that well yet. I don't want you to complete the mating until we're sure we can spend the rest of our lives together."

"I'm already sure."

"That's nice." She gave him a tentative smile. "But I need a little more time. So could you more than try? For me?"

A nerve pulsed in his cheek. "Yes."

"Okay." She stood. "Let's go inside and do this."

"Do this?" Nathaniel questioned slowly as he rose to his feet.

"The sex." She nodded, her cheeks flushed.

Nathaniel frowned. Despite having been born in the fifth century, just, he wasn't a chauvinist. But to date, he and his dragon had always been the ones to do the pursuing when it came to the conquest of women. Okay, maybe he was a little chauvinistic when it came to women, a throwback from that earlier age. But having Chloe be the one to bluntly suggest they go to bed together was a little lacking in spontaneity.

Which was perhaps inevitable after Dylan's statement he needed to do blood work after as well as before. Well, after didn't necessarily have to be here.

Chloe eyed him quizzically. "Have you gone off the idea?"

"Hell, no," he assured her vehemently, his cock giving a lurch of protest at the suggestion. "I just... Let me talk to Dylan for a few minutes first, hm? Did you bring warm clothing with you like I asked you to?"

"Yes..."

He nodded. "Then go and put it on. Coat, hat, gloves too. Pack some things into a backpack, a few changes of clothes. I'll do the same and meet you back here in ten minutes."

"Where are we going?" Her eyes widened in alarm. "Iceland? We're going to Iceland right now? How are we going? No," she protested as Nathaniel raised a mocking and pointed brow.

"You seem to be having a conversation with yourself right now," he mused.

"Your dragon isn't going to fly me anywhere." Her face had gone pale again.

He smiled. "Trust me, you're going to love it."

"Will I be wearing a parachute on my back and an emergency one on my front in case you drop me?"

"No."

"Then I'm not going to love it!"

"Anything?" Nathaniel demanded impatiently as soon as he stepped into Dylan's laboratory.

Dylan looked up from where he'd been studying a slide under his microscope. "In a bit of a hurry, are we?"

"You have no idea," Nathaniel muttered. The shift to dragon and then back again had only increased his desire to make love to Chloe. Being apart from her, even for these few minutes, made his cock hard and his skin crawl. He knew Chloe had to be suffering the same way, probably worse, which was another reason he needed to get this conversation with Dylan over with.

"Oh, I think I might," his brother mocked before sobering. "The aphrodisiac had increased in your blood since you went to London to collect Chloe."

"I didn't need a blood test to tell me that!" His cock had been constantly hard since the moment he saw and touched Chloe again.

Dylan smiled ruefully. "There's something besides the aphrodisiac in Chloe's blood. An unexplained anomaly that I believe to be compatible with dragon DNA."

Nathaniel's heart sped up. "Is it going to be enough that I won't kill her when I do mate her?"

"You're going to do what she asked and put off completing the mating?"

His gaze was challenging as he met his brother's. "Yes."

"Then why are you asking me whether or not the mating will kill her?"

"Because I'm going to try not to mate her." He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. "I have no fucking idea what will happen once I'm inside her."

"Okay." Dylan straightened. "How did Chloe react to seeing your dragon?"

His smile was tinged with pride for the fact Chloe hadn't freaked out. "She loved him."

Dylan smiled ruefully. "She's a gutsy woman, I'll give her that."

"Enough so to be a dragon's mate?"

Dylan pursed his lips. "She was definitely in a lust fever when you went to her apartment?"

"Yes."

"It stops when the two of you touch each other?"

"The fever, but not the lust."

"You aren't able to compel her?"

"Not at all." He was still surprised by that.

"Then, yes," Dylan nodded slowly. "I think there's enough dragon DNA in Chloe's blood to indicate you won't kill her— Nathaniel!" he called sharply as Nathaniel would have left the laboratory. "I'm still going to need to do the blood work after the two of you have had sex."

"You'll have to wait until we get back."

"Back from where?" Dylan frowned. "Where the hell are you going?"

"Iceland. And we don't need any company. Not you or any of the brothers," he added grimly.

"Grigor isn't going to like this."

Nathaniel scowled. "After what you and Grigor kept from the rest of us, he can kiss my ass."

Dylan winced. "What about Chloe's family if she just disappears?"

"Her mother is dead. She hasn't mentioned her father, so I think he might be too. I don't think she has any other family. Except me," he added with satisfaction.

His brother still looked troubled. "We'll need to check more deeply into her family history at some stage."

"But not tonight," Nathaniel stated firmly.

"No, not tonight," Dylan conceded, rising to his feet to cross the room to where Nathaniel stood in the doorway, obviously restless to return to Chloe. "But I want you to take notes of what happens before, during, and after you've... This is important, Nate," he cautioned as Nathaniel gave a disbelieving snort. "You might be the first of us to find his mate, but you might not be the last, and it would be helpful if we knew exactly what to expect. Whether you bite Chloe or not, if she's your fated mate, then I believe the barb at the base of your cock will also make an appearance when the two of you have sex."

"Damn it, I'd forgotten about that." He'd always known the barb was there, but as it had never done anything when he was with other women, he hadn't given it a thought for years. "What does 'make an appearance' mean, exactly?"

"As it's similar in design to wolves, if Chloe really is your mate, you'll knot her. Your cock will stay locked inside her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes," Dylan explained at Nathaniel's blank look. "You'll keep ejaculating the whole time because your seed is trying to take root."

"Shit..." Nathaniel groaned. "You mean Chloe could become pregnant from us being together just the once?"

"Only if you complete the mating and probably only if she's ovulating at the time."

"That's a lot of probables."

"Hm." Dylan nodded.

"What about contraception?"

His brother gave a grimace. "I'm not sure if human contraception is going to be effective against dragon sperm."

"Fucking hell!" Nathaniel ran an agitated hand through his hair.

"If anything goes wrong, and you need me..."

Nathaniel sincerely hoped, prayed, that wouldn't be necessary.
Chapter 11

Chloe loved being held in Nathanial's dragon arms as he used his amazing wingspan to fly them both to his volcanic cave in Iceland.

She had been terrified at first, felt totally unsafe knowing it was only Nathaniel's dragon that stopped her from plummeting to the ground. But he held her so gently and so closely, she soon felt totally safe. Instead of a parachute, she held her backpack and his own. Being this close to him also meant she was warmed by his dragon body.

Besides, there was far too much to see to worry about falling. The view of land and sea was magnificent as they moved swiftly through the sky. Nathaniel had assured her before they left Wales they were well away from any flight paths and low enough not to show up on an airport radar. Only the graceful sweep of Nathaniel's wings—wings!—broke the silence.

It was amazing. Unlike anything Chloe had ever experienced before.

She was sure she didn't breathe at all when Nathaniel flew them through the wonder of the Northern lights. Greens and purples, and every spectrum of color in between.

The flight was over way too soon as Nathaniel swooped down to land on a rocky outcrop among a lot of other mountains. He placed her gently and carefully on the ice-covered ground before shifting back to human form and relieving her of the weight of the two backpacks.

"Well?" He tilted his head, looking much like his dragon did when it was curious.

Chloe straightened her clothing. "Well, no one came round with peanuts and a drink, but otherwise... It was awesome!" she enthused, grinning widely. "Indescribably amazing."

Nathaniel chuckled. "So will you be flying with this airline again?"

She gave a light and exuberant laugh. "Is there any other way to travel?"

"Let's go inside and you can see my cave." He took a firm grasp of her arm and took her with him as he bent down beneath where an overhang of ice hid the entrance to a cave. "You're going to need a flashlight now."

"You don't?" Chloe took the flashlight he handed her from his backpack.

"After fifteen hundred years, I'm pretty familiar with the route. Besides, my dragon can see in the dark," he dismissed before taking hold of her hand and striding forward along the ice path.

Chloe was totally enthralled by the beauty surrounding her as they walked through a tunnel made completely of blue-tinged ice. Every now and then, it would widen out to a small lava cave, and she would pause to gaze in awe at the stalactites and stalagmites as they formed intricate sculptures.

Still Nathaniel kept walking steadily forward, until they reached a much bigger cave almost half a mile deep into the mountain. It was a huge open area, maybe forty feet high and twice as wide.

Nathaniel had obviously been here often in the past.

There were concealed lights high up on the walls and in the bubbling hot spring in the center of the cave which was perhaps also the generator for those lights. There was a comfortable armchair, and books locked away in a glass cabinet next to a bed made up completely of animal furs.

"I can see where we get the fresh water from." There was a fall of water in one corner of the cave, no doubt the meltdown from the glacier overhead. "But what do we do about food?"

"I'll go out and get some in the morning."

"I didn't notice a supermarket nearby," she teased.

"But there are plenty of fish in the waters around here."

She pulled a face. "I hope you don't intend for me to gut and clean them for you, because I can assure you that isn't happening."

"My dragon usually eats them whole and raw. I'm happy to gut and cook your share," he added as she continued to grimace.

"Fine." The hot spring was providing enough heat that Chloe now felt warm enough to take off her coat, hat, and gloves. Unfortunately, she could also feel the return of sexual fever now that she and Nathaniel were no longer touching.

She hoped to God that wasn't going to be a permanent state of affairs, because she had no intention of being joined to Nathaniel at the hip—or anywhere else—for the rest of her life. Maybe—

"And the rest," Nathaniel instructed, his eyes having taken on a predatory gleam.

She brightened. "Are we going for a swim?"

"No."

She looked confused for a moment, and then her eyes widened as his intent became clear, her tongue sweeping nervously over her bottom lip. "No foreplay?"

"Oh, there'll be foreplay," he drawled. "But maybe not the kind you were expecting," he added dryly.

Chloe eyed him uncertainly. "What does that mean?"

"You know that saying about elephants never forgetting?" He waited for her wary nod. "Well, the same applies to dragons."

"I don't— You're going to keep your promise and spank me!" She gasped in realization.

Nathaniel almost laughed at Chloe's incredulous expression. Almost, because there was nothing in the least funny about this obsession she had that he was going to kill her or allow one of his brothers to do it.

Nathaniel had meant it earlier when he said Chloe was now his greatest treasure. But that didn't mean he was going to let her walk all over him. Especially when it was a question of her safety.

Chloe needed to learn that when he told her to do something, he was doing it for her own protection. She also needed to know that when he said he was going to do something, he meant that too.

He had promised her a spanking earlier today, and she was going to get exactly that before they did anything else.

Chloe felt extremely self-conscious as Nathaniel put his backpack down next to hers before sitting on a raised and well-worn lava rock to watch her every move as she untied and slipped off her boots before slowly removing her sweater. "You do know spanking someone is barbaric?" And painful, as she remembered only too well from the last time Nathaniel had spanked her. And she had been wearing jeans that time.

He bared his teeth in that predatory smile. "Dragon, remember?"

She scowled at him. "How can I forget?"

His gaze swept over her as she stood in front of him wearing only her black lace bra, jeans, and socks. "I think ten should do it."

"Ten what? No," she protested as she realized what he meant. "Five."

"We aren't negotiating, Chloe," he said mildly. "I said ten, and I meant ten." His eyes narrowed to green slits. "Being dragon can be dangerous, and sometime in the future, your safety might depend on you listening and instantly obeying when I tell you to do something."

"You can forget thinking I'm going to blindly obey you," she informed him rebelliously. A rebellion that was completely nullified by the fact she had already unzipped and removed her jeans and now wore only bra, panties, and socks. "Most brides nowadays even have the 'obey' part removed from the marriage service." Her cheeks blazed with heat as she realized what she'd said. "Not that we're getting married—"

"Oh, we're getting married, Chloe," he assured her. "I have every intention of tying you to me in the human world as well as the dragon one."

Chloe glared at him. "Maybe you should try asking rather than assuming?"

He nodded. "When the time is right, I'll ask. You seem to have stopped undressing...?"

Her face flushed. "We're having a conversation."

"I'm sure you're capable of doing two things at the same time."

She was more than capable of smacking him round the head if he didn't stop talking to her in that reasoning voice she found so irritating.

He stood up. "Would you like me to remove the rest of your clothes for you, or are you going to do it?"

First he shocked the hell out of her by announcing he intended marrying her, and now he was as good as telling her to strip.

Not so that he could make wild and passionate love to her—not yet, anyway—but so he could spank her bare bottom.

"I can do it," she bit out, her chin rising as she met Nathaniel's gaze unflinchingly before she reached back to unfasten her bra. She slid the straps down her arms before dropping the lace garment on top of her other clothes.

Nathaniel's breath caught in his throat as he gazed at Chloe's bared breasts. Not too small and not too big, they sloped upward and would fit perfectly in the palms of his hands. Her nipples were plump, a deep rose in color, and surrounded by a darker areola. His mouth watered in anticipation of suckling and pleasuring them. Pleasuring Chloe.

He could see her deep red curls covering her mound beneath black lace panties—

"I think it would be fairer if you were naked too," Chloe challenged.

He quirked a dark brow. "You do?"

"Yes," she maintained stubbornly.

"Sure about that?"

Chloe wasn't sure about anything right now, least of all seeing and being with a completely naked Nathaniel. Although she had to admit her curiosity to do just that, and the sexual fever, was increasing by the minute.

She'd never been particularly self-conscious about her own body or shy about going to bed with a man. Although, to be honest, she'd had only three lovers, two when she was at university, and most recently, Keith. None of those relationships had excited her as much as Nathaniel did merely by existing.

But Nathaniel was fifteen hundred years old, and he must have had hundreds of lovers during all those years he could compare her to. Chloe had always thought her breasts were a bit on the large side, and her hips a little too curvaceous. She didn't have long, sexy legs either. In fact, she wasn't completely sure what he or his dragon was so excited about.

Whereas he...

Chloe's mouth went dry as she realized, while she had been angsting about whether or not she would compare favorably with Nathaniel's previous lovers, he had already removed his T-shirt and bared a chest that Adonis would have been envious of.

Ripped muscles in his shoulders and arms, washboard abs, with a fine dusting of dark hair across his copper-colored nipples and veeing down to where he was now unfastening his jeans before pushing them and his boxers down to his knees.

Oh. My. God.

His cock was... Well, as she had hoped, it was completely in proportion to the rest of his body.

At least nine inches long, a thick vein throbbed along its length, and it was so thick around, Chloe was sure she would never get the fingers of one hand around it, let alone fit it into her mouth.

But its engorged state, the purple head slicked with pre-cum, did at least confirm she had nothing to worry about in regard to whether or not Nathaniel would desire her when he saw her without her clothes on.

Nathaniel slipped the rest of his clothes off completely before moving to sit on the raised platform of rock where the collection of furs acted as a bed. He didn't say a word as he met her gaze and patted the tops of his thighs.

Chloe gave a derisive snort. "You're seriously expecting me to meekly drape myself over there so you can spank me?"

"I doubt you've ever been meek in your life," he drawled. "But yes, I seriously am expecting that."

He was speaking in that mild and reasoning voice again, but Chloe could also hear an undercurrent of warning and knew there was a danger he would just throw her across his thighs if she didn't do it willingly. "I think you're being completely unfair." She slipped off her panties before stomping to his side, very self-conscious of her nakedness. Of Nathaniel's nakedness too. That engorged cock could be classified as a dangerous weapon. "I also think my concern for my life was warranted after Deryk's threats," she defended.

His eyes narrowed. "I told you I wouldn't let anything hurt you, and that includes Deryk. In return, you have shown time and time again you don't trust me to protect you."

"I didn't know you then."

One brow quirked. "Do you know me now?"

"I know more about you now than I believed was possible," she stated with feeling.

He grinned. "Admit it, you find the whole dragon thing exciting."

She did. She found everything about Nathaniel exciting.

Except this penchant he had for spanking her.

Although even that had aroused her last time, so maybe she found that exciting too?

"Oh, very well." She threw herself ungraciously across the heat of his thighs, instantly able to feel the lessening of her fever, if not the sexual arousal.

Nathaniel's large hands instantly cupped the twin swell of her bottom. "This is delicious."

Her sexual arousal instantly deepened. "Will you just get on with it, already!" she snapped to cover her embarrassment. Although why she was bothering when Nathaniel only had to breathe in to inhale the scent of her arousal, she had no idea. No doubt his heightened dragon senses added to the scent her arousal.

Nathaniel chuckled softly as he continued to cup and squeeze the twin globes of Chloe's firm ass. "Patience is a virtue." And he was enjoying himself far too much to want to stop just yet. Chloe's skin was as soft as silk, and just as touchable.

"Not when you're waiting to be spanked it isn't."

Maybe he was being a little unfair, making Chloe wait for her punishment. Although the increase in the perfume of the juices slicking between her thighs indicated she was distressed but also aroused.

He dipped his fingers between her thighs to caress along the puffy lips of her pussy, his fingers instantly becoming wet with her fragrant juice.

"What the hell— Ouch!" Chloe cried out as Nathaniel used his other hand to land a smack on the left side of her bottom. "A bit of warning would have been nice. I don't— Are you licking your fingers?" she prompted incredulously as she turned her head to watch him doing exactly that.

He carried on licking. "I'm multitasking."

Chloe couldn't stop her snort of laughter. "Did you seriously just say that?"

He grinned unabashedly. "You taste delicious."

"That—that's—"

"Ambrosial," Nathaniel assured, holding her gaze with his as he continued to meticulously lick her juice from his fingers before returning them between her thighs for more.

Chloe's cheeks burned as she turned away. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the rocky floor beneath her, as Nathaniel proceeded to spank her and caress between her thighs before licking the slick release gushing from her pussy lips.

Until he reached the count of ten.

By which time, Chloe's bottom was stinging and she was so wet, Nathaniel couldn't lick those juices up fast enough to prevent them from dampening her trimmed pubic hair and dribbling down her thighs. To make matters worse, her clit was so swollen, Nathaniel had no trouble at all in bringing her to a quick and explosive release with just a couple of strokes across that pulsing nubbin.

How mortifying was that?

Very, came the shamed reply.

Before she knew what was happening, Nathaniel had tipped her back up until she was sitting straddled across the width of his thighs, his cock jutting up toward his navel, with her swollen and red pussy lips and clit completely on display.

Chloe leaned forward and buried her face against his shoulder. "I shouldn't have enjoyed that."

"Why the hell not?" Nathaniel grasped her shoulders to pull her back enough so that he could look at her blushing face. "I've said I won't bite you, but I do intend to possess you totally and in every way possible before the night is through. If you deny me your response, even once or by a little bit, I'm not going to be happy," he warned.

"No biting tonight," she reminded.

He nodded abruptly. "I've said I'll try not to."

"Thank you."

"You'll tell me when you're ready for the bite?"

"I will," she promised.

"That's all I ask," he murmured before kissing her.

Chloe felt an increased surge of desire as she hungrily returned those kisses. Her body was on fire, her pussy so desperate to be filled, she began to ride those swollen lips along the length of Nathaniel's cock.

It wasn't enough. She needed to be filled. Ached to have that huge cock inside her.

She bucked restlessly against that steely length as her climax remained just out of reach, like an oasis to a thirsty man in a desert.

Her body didn't care if that desperation was caused by more of the aphrodisiac in Nathaniel's saliva entering her system. It wanted what it wanted. And right now, it wanted Nathaniel's cock.

Nathaniel was obviously as aroused as she was as he broke the kiss. His face was flushed, eyes glittering. "If you lift up, you can take my cock inside you while I suckle your nipples."

Chloe decided to ignore the command in his voice this time. Her fingers encircled the hardness of his cock and she lifted up onto the tips of her toes in readiness for taking him inside her.

Nathaniel had had no idea what sexual hunger was until Chloe. But now he knew. Oh God did he know. So much so, he was on the brink of ejaculating without so much as a touch or caress from her.

Because he was greedy for the touch and taste of her. Wanted to kiss every inch of her. Every inch. To touch her too, discover all her secret places and claim them as his own.

But first he needed to take the edge off his own desire. To be inside her as he came, to feel the glide of her heat as his cock thrust inside her and claimed her.

"Yes," he groaned as his cock breached the entrance to her channel and deeper into that wet heat when Chloe lowered herself onto him, inch by tortuous inch until his cock was buried to the hilt. She didn't even have to move, not a muscle, before Nathaniel felt his balls tighten and cum shoot down the length of his cock. Nathaniel had never come so hard in his life, drowning Chloe in pump after pump of hot cum. Her pussy walls contracted about him, and Chloe came a second time.

Which was when he felt that barb at the base of his cock swell and grow, locking his cock inside her as he began to come for a second time.

And he knew, bite or not, Chloe truly was his fated mate.
Chapter 12

Chloe had no idea what was happening to her as she felt something swelling at the base of Nathaniel's cock, stretching the entrance to her pussy to an almost painful degree, before it stroked and stimulated that knot of nerves inside her. She cried out as her body was convulsed by a climax that threatened to rip her apart, followed by another, and then another.

"Nathaniel!" Her fingers gripped tightly to his tensed shoulders. Her body quivered and shook from the gut-wrenching intensity of those multiple climaxes.

"Just go with it," he encouraged throatily

"As if I can do anything else!" Nothing happened when she tried to lift up and off Nathaniel. The pulsing hardness of his cock was literally locked inside her. That swelling on his cock filled her pussy entrance, something stroking the knot of nerves and stimulating her clit from the inside. "Is this normal?

"I wasn't sure this would happen without the bite," he ground out through gritted teeth.

"It's part of the mating?"

"Yes," he confirmed distractedly, his climaxes seeming to be as powerful as Chloe's as he shot more hot cum deep inside her each time she climaxed.

This was going beyond pleasure and taking Chloe into a world where Nathaniel, the pulsing of his cock, and that stroking inside her became her only reality. "Is this going to happen every time?" she gasped a long time later when the climaxes started to subside.

"No." Nathaniel didn't feel it was the right time to tell Chloe that Dylan had warned him to expect it to be like this between them until Chloe became pregnant with his offspring. Which Dylan didn't believe would happen until the mating was complete. Nathaniel hoped his brother was right about that, or he was going to have one seriously pissed-off Chloe on his hands.

He wasn't even sure how he felt about it himself, let alone dropping that life-changing bombshell on Chloe.

Offspring.

That might or might not be born human.

"How close to your period are you?"

She raised her head to look at him. "What?"

Nathaniel knew by the blush in her cheeks that she had heard him the first time. "When did you last ovulate?"

"Three weeks ago."

Past ovulation, then, Nathaniel calculated quickly.

"I'm taking the pill, if you're worried about me getting pregnant," Chloe added at his silence. "I'm not—Oh God..." she groaned, and Nathaniel felt her pussy contract as she lost herself in yet another climax. "I'm not completely stupid," she spoke again minutes later, once the quaking of her body had abated, her damp forehead resting weakly on his shoulder. "But I'm obviously not completely sane either," she muttered. "How can I be when I allowed myself to be carried off to Iceland and half mated by a dragon?"

"Chloe—"

"Don't," she warned fiercely. "How long are we going to be locked together like this?"

"Dylan believes ten, fifteen minutes tops."

"Dylan knows about this? Which means you knew about this and didn't tell me," she added accusingly.

Nathaniel's mouth tightened. "I couldn't be sure," he defended. "It doesn't do this unless we're with our mate, and none of us has ever mated before."

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "What about the woman you said died from the lust fever?"

"It was almost two hundred years ago."

"You said your brother Rufus died almost two hundred years ago, so was she his mate?"

"We believe so. He didn't tell us about her, or what happened between them," he snapped his impatience as she glared at him. "We're the first we all know about, Chloe, which is why we can't really be sure about any of this."

"Oh God," she choked. "I've just realized... I'm human, Nathaniel. What's going to happen after I'm dead?"

"Jesus..."

"Well, it's going to happen one day," she blinked back tears, "so there's no point in thinking it isn't. Do you take another mate then?"

He gave a slow shake of his head. "There's only one mate for each of us."

"Fifteen hundred years alone, fifty, maybe sixty years with a mate, and then you're left alone again?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore right now." Even talking about Chloe dying made him feel violent.

"Fine," Chloe snapped. "The mating lust seems to have abated now anyway, and I need some time to think about all of this. Away from you," she added as he would have spoken. "As soon as this, whatever it is, stops, I need you to fly me back to England. As close to my apartment as it's safe for you to land without your dragon being seen— I can't believe I'm even saying these things!" She gave another groan. "You've totally bewitched me with all your dragon magnificence."

Nathaniel didn't know what to say to that. What could he say? He doubted Chloe was in any mood to hear, bite or not, that he believed the mating had already gone too far to be reversed. Yes, the mating lust had abated for now, but he had no doubt it would come back. That if they were apart for any length of time without satisfying that lust, Chloe would waste away and die, as Rebecca had after Rufus was killed.

Heavy stuff for a first date.

Well...it wasn't even a first date, Nathaniel acknowledged with an inner groan, knowing he had gone about this in totally the wrong way. The two of them should have talked more before they did anything else. Discussed the situation so that Chloe knew exactly what she was getting herself into.

And if he hadn't gone to her apartment and found her in that feverish state, if he hadn't brought her to Iceland and started the mating, what then?

Chloe would have died, as Rebecca had died.

Nathaniel's arms tightened possessively, and he held Chloe even closer against him. She was his, damn it. As he was hers. There would be no one else for either of them. Ever.

He would do whatever Chloe wanted him to do to in order to make this work for her.

Everything except let her go.

Chloe ached, everywhere, inside and out, and her bottom still felt as if it was on fire from where Nathaniel had spanked her when she woke from an exhausted sleep. She felt as if she had been in a battle—and lost. Badly.

She was also, she realized as soon as she opened heavy lids, lying on a bed of furs in a cave deep in the bowels of a mountain in Iceland.

What had she done?

All the memories of last night came flooding back to her.

Seeing and being mesmerized by Nathaniel's dragon.

Being flown to Iceland by that dragon.

This cave.

That powerful lovemaking.

The way Nathaniel's cock had swelled and locked inside her.

Those multiple orgasms.

My need to get as far away from Nathaniel as fast as I possibly can.

And then she had fallen asleep in his arms.

Sometime during the night, she had been vaguely aware of the shrinking of the barb on Nathaniel's cock. Of feeling that still semihard length finally sliding from inside her. Followed by—

Ew.

She was lying in a sticky, uncomfortable mess, a result of her own and Nathaniel's many releases.

Speaking of which, where was he?

She glanced cautiously about the cave and realized Nathaniel wasn't here. Maybe he had gone off in search of that food he had promised her today. In the meantime, she was completely alone. In a cave deep in the heart of an Icelandic mountain.

A cave that had its very own hot and available bath, she reminded herself.

Chloe threw back the furs covering her and rose slowly to her feet, every muscle in her body aching as she hobbled over to the side of the hot spring. She gave a relieved sigh as she slid gingerly down into the soothing water. Keeping one hand on a rock, she used the other hand to explore beneath the milky blue water. It wasn't that deep against the sides, maybe four feet or so, and there was a ledge along the side about three feet down.

It was a bit like sitting in a hot tub, Chloe discovered as she sat on the ledge and leaned her head back on the side. The gentle swirl of the water over and on her aching body had the same effect as a hot tub too. Her muscles started to unlock, and the soreness between her legs began to ease.

And she was no longer being consumed by that unbearable fever of arousal.

Which was something, at least. It made no difference to her, having decided she wanted to go back to England, to have some time away from Nathaniel and the craziness. But it was certainly a relief to no longer have that feeling of ants crawling across her skin, or as if she was being consumed from the inside out by her own desire.

Nathaniel insisted they were fated mates, but what did that mean?

Lots of out-of-control sex, for one thing!

Which, all things considered, wasn't as unacceptable as she had told Nathaniel it was.

Except it had probably ruined her for being with any other man. How could a human man possibly compete with the sexual stamina of a man who was also a dragon?

Chloe gave a self-derisive snort as she acknowledged, to herself, at least, that the sex had been incredible. On a scale of one to ten, it had been a twenty. Way off-the-charts amazing.

Relaxed and no longer burning up with fever, she allowed one of her hands to wander across her thigh and explore between her legs. The soreness had gone now, and the lightest touch caused the lips of her labia to swell and her clit to throb.

If Nathaniel was here, she knew she would want him inside her again. But as Nathaniel wasn't here...

Oh God, yes.

Slowly stroking her fingers over and around her clit caused her neck to arch, her breasts to thrust forward, the hard nipples being caressed and aroused by the swirling water.

Nathaniel came to a halt in the entrance to the cave the moment he saw Chloe in the hot spring and realized what she was doing. Her head was thrown back, eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, and her breathing ragged. The rhythmic movement of her arm told him she was stroking her fingers between her thighs, maybe even fucking herself with a couple of them at the same time as she masturbated her clit.

She had still been sleeping when he left the cave earlier, but obviously she was awake and needy now.

He left the fish he was carrying by the wall before moving stealthily across the cave, closer to where Chloe was totally lost in her own pleasure. He continued to watch her as he slowly began to peel the clothing from his own body.

Tiny pearl-white teeth fastened onto Chloe's bottom lip, and the flush deepened in her cheeks, the movement of her arm increasing in speed as she neared completion.

Nathaniel was completely naked by the time Chloe pinched her nipple and groaned long and deeply as her body was racked by the deep shudders of her climax.

He slipped easily into the water beside her before speaking. "I think I enjoyed that as much as you obviously did."

Chloe's eyes opened in shock, embarrassed color heating her cheeks. "Where the hell have you been?" she attacked in an attempt to hide some of that embarrassment.

An attempt that failed if Nathaniel's knowing smile was anything to go by. "Hunting down our dinner," he answered calmly. "But there's something else I urgently need to do before I start cooking."

There was no way Chloe could miss seeing the predatory gleam in his eyes as he moved closer. Or that nine-inch club bobbing below the water. "Dinner?" she repeated defensively. "Shouldn't that be breakfast?"

He shook his head. "You've been asleep for almost twenty-four hours."

She'd slept almost a whole night and all the next day?

Well, she had been exhausted. But even so... "What are you doing?" she demanded sharply as Nathaniel moved to stand between her parted thighs, resulting in an instant return of her arousal.

He chuckled. "Guess." He gave a low groan as the tip of his cock easily penetrated the entrance to her sheath. "God, that feels good."

There was no denying it did feel good. It also felt right.

But it wasn't, and Nathaniel must know that as much as she did.

All this, the attraction and instant arousal, was a result of the mating fever and the aphrodisiac saliva. Nothing had changed. They didn't really know each other. Didn't know if they even liked each other. Had no idea if they had any interests in common. From the moment they first met, conversation hadn't been high on their list of priorities.

"No." Chloe placed her hands against Nathaniel's chest to stop his cock penetrating any farther. Good as it felt, one of them had to be sensible about this, so it might as well be her. "Sex isn't the answer to everything."

He placed his hands on the wall behind and either side of her, his head dipping as his lips began a delicate exploration of the sensitive flesh between the curve of her neck and shoulder. "Right now, it is." His tongue rasped across that flesh, causing a shiver of reaction through the whole of Chloe's body.

"No," Chloe's protest was only half-hearted this time, the touch of Nathaniel's lips having their usual effect on her, the tip of his cock breaching her pussy and making her ache for him to go deeper. "I'm too sore from last night to take you knotting me again so soon. I— How about you sit on the side of the pool and I pleasure you instead?"

Nathaniel raised his head and studied her face for several long seconds. There was undoubtedly desire in the glitter of Chloe's eyes and her puffy and slightly parted lips. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her with full penetration if she really was sore from last night.

"Okay." He gave a low groan as he slipped his cock from between the heat of her pussy lips. He used his arms to easily pull himself from the water before sitting on the side of the pool, splaying his legs apart as Chloe stood in the water and moved to stand between his thighs.

He drew in a hissing breath as one of her hands moved to encircle the hardness of his cock while the other cupped the weight of his balls. Her long, damp hair brushed against his sensitive thighs as she lowered her head to lick the top of his cock.

She glanced up at him uncertainly mid-lick. "The barb isn't going to swell up in my mouth, is it?"

"Doubtful." He knew from experience Chloe wouldn't be able to take the whole nine inches into her mouth or down her throat, but wisely decided not to tell her that.

"But not certain?"

"I'm certain." After her panic at the end of their lovemaking last night, he wasn't going into the details of how it was her cum that had triggered the swelling and knotting of his cock inside her.

And then he couldn't think at all as the heat of Chloe's mouth enveloped the full tip of his cock, her tongue probing and caressing the slit at the top before she took him to the back of her throat.

Jesus!

Nathaniel leaned back on his hands and watched through slitted lids as Chloe's hand stroked along his length and her head began to bob slowly up and down in the same rhythm. Her tongue was a sensual swirl along the length of his cock each time she moved up, the head of his cock fitting perfectly in the back of her throat when she moved down again.

It was heaven and torture at the same time.

It felt so good, he wanted it to last forever, but the tightening of his balls and the steady leak of pre-cum down the length of his cock told him he wasn't going to last long.

He wasn't going to last at all if Chloe continued to press her finger against the sensitive skin beneath his balls and along his perineum.

"Shit!" He let out a hoarse cry and came the moment that finger penetrated the tight ring of muscle farther back. Hot cum shot along the length of his cock and exploded into her waiting mouth. That finger inside him and the reflex of her swallow squeezing the top of his cock caused him to keep pumping into her mouth until there was no cum left in him for her to swallow. He fell back weakly onto the stone floor the moment Chloe raised her head and her fingers stopped their torment. "You're far too good at that," he groaned.

"I am?" Chloe crawled out of the water to lie down at his side, her head on his shoulder, fingers lightly playing with the dark misting of hair on his chest.

"I don't—" Nathaniel stilled, his dragon senses telling him there was another predator close by. Several predators. Too close to his mate. He sat up slowly, taking Chloe with him. "I want you to get dry and dressed." He spoke softly as he rose to his feet and pulled on his jeans.

"Nathaniel?"

He hated the sudden look of fear he could see in Chloe's eyes. Whatever this predator was, it would die for frightening his mate. "There is something, or someone, up above. I'm going to the surface. There's a gun in my backpack, if it isn't me that comes back through the cave entrance."

"A gun?" She looked startled as she slowly rose to her feet. "What is it you think is up there?"

"I don't know yet. But don't be afraid to shoot them if you have to," he instructed distractedly, his attention all centered on the danger he sensed above them.

"I don't have the faintest idea how to fire a gun." Chloe looked and sounded panicked.

"The safety catch is already off. Try not to tense up and just aim and fire it. Whatever you hear, do not come up to the surface. You'll have the advantage if you wait for them to come to you." His movements were predatory as he stalked toward the cave entrance.

"Nathaniel!" Chloe knew she sounded slightly hysterical. But that was probably because she was! Two minutes ago, she hadn't had a care in the world except to hope she had pleased Nathaniel, and now it seemed Nathaniel had sensed there was some sort of danger close by. Although how the hell he knew that, she had no idea.

Dragon.

He paused in the cave entrance to turn and look at her. "It will be okay, Chloe. I promised I wouldn't let anything hurt you," he reminded her grimly.

"And we both know you keep your promises," she choked out as she moved swiftly across the cave. Her hands rested against the warmth of his chest as she reached up on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips. "Stay safe," she said gruffly.

His smile was confident. "Nothing will happen to me, I'm the biggest predator in the world." He kissed her. "Now get dressed." He gave her a light smack on her bare bottom. "I'll be back before you even miss me," he assured her before disappearing out and along the passageway to the surface.

Chloe felt the sting of tears in her eyes as she watched him go.

Being the biggest predator didn't mean he was also the swiftest.

But he could breathe fire, she reminded herself.

And the length and thickness of his powerful tail was a weapon in itself.

As well as those lethal claws.

Nathaniel would be safe.

He had to be.

But Nathaniel wasn't back before Chloe missed him. How could he be when she missed him the moment he disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel outside the cave?

Waiting for him to come back, the minutes slowly ticking by, and having absolutely no idea what was going on above her was excruciating. She had never felt so alone.

She filled some of the time by doing as he'd asked, drying herself and dressing, before searching through his backpack for the gun. Merely looking at it made her feel slightly queasy, so she doubted very much there was any way she was ever going to be able to fire it.

When she simply couldn't stand the waiting any longer, Chloe picked up her flashlight and left the cave to follow Nathaniel, the gun gripped tightly in her other hand.
Chapter 13

Nathaniel instinctively became dragon and remained standing in front of the entrance to the cave, protecting his mate, as he faced off against the two dragons standing on the ledge outside.

"We're too late, I see," Grigor snapped harshly, his red dragon both bigger and more powerful than Nathaniel's green dragon.

"I said we would be," Deryk's sleek golden dragon derided. "But you insisted on coming anyway."

Grigor ignored him, his gaze, so dark a brown his eyes were almost black, remaining fixed on Nathaniel. "What have you done?"

Nathaniel bared his teeth. "Chloe is mine." The bite was immaterial to him. As far as he was concerned, Chloe had been his mate since the moment he broke into her apartment.

"Mating frenzy," Deryk dismissed dryly.

Nathaniel's gaze shifted briefly to his younger brother. "Fuck off."

"Be glad to." The shrug could be heard in Deryk's voice. "But you know Grigor."

"I thought I did." Nathaniel's tail swung forward and back in his agitation. He was still angry Grigor had decided to keep the truth of Rufus and Rebecca from them. "You owe us all an explanation, brother," he stated formally.

The red dragon's nostrils flared as evidence of Grigor's own anger. "You should not have acted without sanction from the rest of us."

His eyes narrowed in warning. "I don't need your permission to be with my mate."

"You need my permission to put yourself in danger!" Grigor's voice boomed out across the mountainside. "If this woman—"

"Her name is Chloe!"

"There is every reason to believe you will die if this woman decides she doesn't want you," Grigor stated remorselessly.

Nathaniel spun round as he heard a gasp behind him and saw Chloe had come up to the entrance of the cave, against his specific instruction. "Go back inside," he ordered harshly.

"But—"

"You will do as I say!" he thundered at her, knowing her defiance was only weakening his position with his eldest brother.

Chloe debated obeying him—for about two seconds. Then her sense of self reasserted itself, and instead of retreating back to the cave, she stepped to the side and in front of him and found herself looking up at two more dragons as stunningly beautiful—and as unbelievable—as Nathaniel's.

She knew who they were, of course. Deryk was the golden dragon, Grigor the red. A shimmering gold and red that glinted in the last of the sun's evening rays. She really had slept for almost twenty-four hours.

Deryk somehow managed to look mocking even in dragon form. But Grigor...Grigor was looking at her with cold, dark eyes that sent a shiver of apprehension down the length of her spine. He didn't like her, and he was making no effort to hide that dislike. After the part of the brothers' conversation Chloe had overheard, perhaps that wasn't so surprising.

She narrowed her gaze on all of them. "Could you all do me the courtesy of changing—shifting, so that we can talk like reasonable human beings."

"Which we're not," Deryk drawled, once again standing before her in his lethally attractive human form in the long black leather duster.

"Reasonable or human?" Chloe came back scathingly.

Nathaniel shook his head at her as he became his human self.

"Here." Chloe thrust the gun into his hand before turning to give the last of the dragons a pointed glance. "I'm impressed, okay?" she drawled. "That means you can be human like the rest of us if you want to be included in this conversation," she added as the huge red dragon glowered down at her.

Grigor continued to glower for several long seconds, then there was that shimmer in the air, red this time, and Chloe saw him in his human form for the first time.

Grigor the man was as imposing as his dragon. Dressed all in black, he was over six and a half feet of powerful muscles, with overlong dark hair and a face that looked as if it had been hewn from the same molten rock as this mountain. As expected, his eyes were so dark a brown, they were almost as black as jet, and as cold.

"As for you..." She turned to Nathaniel accusingly. "You forgot to mention you might die if this doesn't work out between the two of us."

The idea that if she and Nathaniel mated, she might kill him if she left him, only confirmed her decision not to complete the mating.

"Because I didn't know that," Nathaniel stated evenly.

"I do." Grigor's voice was low and deep.

Three pairs of eyes turned in his direction, telling Chloe that this was obviously news to Nathaniel and Deryk too.

"Well?" she prompted when he added nothing further.

Anger flashed in those dark eyes before it was brought back under Grigor's control. "I suggest we all get off this windy ledge if we're going to continue talking," he bit out. "Why the hell you had to choose somewhere so bloody cold and remote for your nest is beyond me." He turned that disapproving stare on Nathaniel.

"Maybe because it's so cold and remote, none of you ever bothered me here. Until now," Nathaniel added impatiently before turning to take Chloe's hand possessively in his as the two of them preceded his brothers back into his cave.

He was far from happy about this situation. For one thing, every one of his protective instincts was on full alert. It didn't matter that the other male dragons were two of his brothers, his dragon still perceived them as a threat to his mate.

He also didn't like the fact Grigor's remarks seemed to indicate there was yet more information his eldest brother had kept from the rest of them.

Grigor had always been arrogant, but this was unacceptable.

"Talk," Nathaniel instructed tautly once they were all within the warmth of his cave.

Grigor's nostrils flared. "I don't care for your attitude—"

"And I don't care for the fact you've been keeping information from the rest of us. For years, by the sound of it," he challenged. "But it is what it is."

"Perhaps you would like to take on the role of leader and see how easy you find it to make the decisions that affect all of us?"

Nathaniel met his brother's gaze unblinkingly. "Perhaps I would."

"Dragons have fiery tempers," Deryk remarked casually to Chloe as she nervously watched the other two powerful men face off against each other.

Chloe briefly raised her eyes to the roof of the cave. "Now, isn't that a surprise."

Deryk grinned. "How was the sex? As good as I'm hoping it is?"

Chloe knew this sarcastic man well enough now to know that he was enjoying himself at her expense. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

His grin widened. "When I find my mate, I have every intention of doing so."

Chloe gave a derisive snort. "You'll have to find a woman who's willing to put up with you first." Her tone implied she doubted that would ever happen. Handsome as sin he might be, but his sarcasm and rudeness would be a lot for any woman to take on.

His humor faded. "Careful, little girl. Being Nathaniel's mate doesn't give you license to insult me without retribution."

She reacted explosively to once again being called a little girl. "I am not Nathaniel's mate!"

A tense silence suddenly fell over the cave as the fierceness of Chloe's announcement reverberated off the walls, and she found herself the focus of three pairs of intense eyes. One amused. One critical. Nathaniel's shocked and a little hurt.

But what had he expected? This was all new to her, and she was still trying to get her head around this whole mating thing, let alone having other people—namely his brothers—making assumptions about the two of them.

Okay, she accepted there was the complication that unbearable lust fever was eased only by the two of them having sex together. But the rest of it, the bite, this having to be together all the time or they lapsed back into that lust fever, was just too claustrophobic for someone who had lived on her own for the past six years.

She liked living alone. Like being answerable only to herself. Not having to explain herself to someone if she happened to be out working late. Or didn't come home at all.

Besides, she very much doubted Nathaniel would leave Wales to live with her in London. And what was she supposed to do if she lived in Wales? She could maybe get a job working freelance for a local newspaper, but it was hardly going to be the cut and thrust of the newspapers she worked for in London.

She and Nathaniel were as compatible—out of bed—as night and day.

Nathaniel is a twenty out of ten, she reminded herself.

Well, yes, he is, but they couldn't spend all their time in bed together—

Yes, they could.

No!

She had to look at the whole picture, not just part of it, and she seriously didn't see how a long-term—lifetime?—relationship was going to work between herself and Nathaniel. Not one that allowed for the thoroughly independent twenty-first century woman she was and the sixth century man he still was at heart.

Maybe she could visit on weekends.

A booty call? Really?

Okay, maybe not. Nathaniel had that whole sixth-century thing going on that would never accept the woman in his life only being in his life on weekends, and only for the sex, at that. It had been okay for men of his time to go off to battles and crusades, but their women were expected to stay put and tend the livestock and look after the kids.

And while Chloe had been lost in her own thoughts, the three men were still staring at her with those different, but equally censorious, gazes.

"Stop looking at me like that." Her brow furrowed. "You've all known what you are all your lives. I've only known dragons exist for a couple of days, and then only because one of them is trying to claim me as his mate."

"I'm not trying, Chloe," Nathaniel stated quietly. "You are my mate."

"Your woman seems to have some doubt on the matter," Grigor growled.

"You know, I'm really starting to dislike you," Chloe snapped.

To her surprise the stern-faced Grigor stared at her for several tense seconds and then gave a bark of laughter. A flash of humor that transformed that rock-hewn face into something both startlingly and mesmerizingly handsome. His eyes were no longer a glittering black but a warm chocolate brown. There were grooves in his chiseled cheeks, his sculptured lips pulled back over straight white teeth.

Then it was gone, and the scowl once again darkened his lowered brow. "Give yourself time to get to know me better, and then you really won't like me."

It was Chloe's turned to laugh. "Now I'm starting to like you."

"When the two of you have quite finished...?" Nathaniel interrupted coldly. "You were about to tell us how you know I'll die if the mating is broken?" he reminded his brother.

Grigor glanced at Chloe. "We will wait until it is just family."

"That's it." Chloe stepped up until she was standing only inches in front of Grigor, deliberately crowding his space. "In the past five days, I have been kidnapped, imprisoned in a dungeon, escaped only to be in an agony of lust fever for days and nights on end, been flown to Iceland in the arms of a dragon, had sex with said dragon, and now you have the unmitigated gall to treat me like some fucking interloper. Well, let me tell you, buddy." She poked Grigor in the chest, hurting her finger in the process on the rock-solid muscle, "I'm now as much a part of this as any of you are. As such, I don't appreciate—"

Nathaniel made a grab for her arm before she could poke his brother in the chest again. "Chloe—"

"No." She kept her gaze firmly fixed on Grigor as she shook off Nathaniel's hold. "I don't care who you are or what you are, you are going to tell all of us what you know, and you are going to do it now."

Grigor glanced at Nathaniel. "You have chosen your mate well, brother. She will defend you and your dragonlings if the need should ever arrive."

"I'm going to give you a hefty kick in the balls if you don't start talking right now!" Chloe warned with a flash of deep blue eyes.

Deryk looked at her admiringly. "I wish I had seen you first."

Nathaniel growled as Deryk reached out and ran a caressing finger down Chloe's cheek.

He needn't have worried. His feisty mate slapped his brother's hand away at the same time as she stomped on one of his booted feet before moving to stand close by Nathaniel's side.

"You ever touch me again," she warned Deryk, "and I'll take your own sword down off the castle wall and stab you with it."

Grigor gave her an admiring glance as Deryk backed off. "You should claim your mate as quickly as possible," he informed Nathaniel.

Chloe gave Nathaniel an exasperated glance. "You didn't tell me Grigor is a windbag who likes the sound of his own voice."

Nathaniel's gaze remained on his brother. "I believe it's called deflection."

"Ah." She nodded, her expression hardening as she turned to Grigor. "Talk."

His brother thrust his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he began to pace the cave, his movements restless. "About eighteen months ago, I met one of the Russian dragons—"

"I thought you said there were no other dragons?" Chloe accused.

"Chloe," Nathaniel rebuked gently. He would rather Grigor finished his explanation without further interruption.

Besides, as far as he was aware, there were no other dragons, but China and Russia had always been difficult areas for them to search. The political climate had made it almost impossible for them to enter those countries.

"This dragon was black as night and as fearsome a warrior as I have ever met. We were well matched." There was a note of admiration in Grigor's voice. "When the battle was over and no victor emerged, we talked." He ignored Chloe's snort of disgust. "This dragon, Vladimir—"

"Vlad the Russian?" Chloe choked. "Really?"

Grigor gave her a silencing scowl. "Vladimir is the leader of the Russian clan, yes. There are seven of them. All male. They were all born to the same mated pair."

"The mated pair are still alive?" Deryk frowned.

Grigor shook his head. "The father was killed in battle during the war against Napoleon. The mother died three weeks later."

"I don't think I like where this is going," Chloe said slowly.

"How old were the parents when they died?" Nathaniel prompted.

"The father was fifteen hundred years old and the mother twelve hundred."

"Both dragon?"

Grigor's mouth thinned. "Not quite."

"What the hell does that mean?" Chloe snapped.

"The mother was aging as a human when she met her mate. Their mating...allowed her to live as long as her mate did."

Chloe was starting to find it hard to breathe. "You're saying that if I mate with Nathaniel, it would make me immortal too?" That other woman had lived to be twelve hundred years old!

Grigor gave a slight nod of his head.

"Will I be able to fly too?"

"Not that I am aware, no."

"But there is more, isn't there," she said shrewdly.

"You're very astute," he drawled.

"Save your compliments and get on with it," Chloe snapped.

His jaw tightened. "For the past two hundred years, Vladimir and his brothers have been looking for their mates. One of them, the eighth brother, was lucky or unlucky enough to find his mate fifty years ago. Except she would have nothing to do with him once she discovered what he was. Even the promise she would become immortal if they mated held no sway with her. She began to...weaken, and within three weeks she had died. The brother who had found his mate died three weeks after she did."

Three weeks.

It was always three fucking weeks.

There was only one chair in the cave, and Chloe dropped into it, her legs feeling too weak to support her, her previous thoughts all for nothing, right down to that unlikely booty call.

Rufus's mate had died three weeks after he did.

The mother of the Russian dragons died three weeks after her mate.

The Russian brother, whose mate had refused him, had died three weeks after she did.

If Chloe refused to complete her mating to Nathaniel, then he was going to die in three weeks.

And she would follow him three weeks after that.
Chapter 14

"How are things, Nate?" For once, Grigor's voice was gentle. "Have you and Chloe completed the mating yet?"

Things had been...strained between Nathaniel and Chloe since their return from Iceland two weeks ago. They shared Nathaniel's bed every night. Still made fierce love every night, except when Chloe had her period a week ago, but even then, they had needed the closeness of simply holding each other and being together.

Nathaniel hadn't knotted her again. Nor had he been surprised when Chloe's body continued to function as it always had. Without the mating bite, they were existing in a half mating, neither completely committed to each other nor two separate beings. In one more week, either he or Chloe would die without the mating bite.

Every night, it became more tortuous for Nathaniel not to bite her and complete the mating. But he had given Chloe his word, and he wouldn't break it. It had to be Chloe's decision, not his.

She had become withdrawn since their return from Iceland. Spent every day in the room at the top of one of the turrets that Nathaniel had told her was hers to use as her own office, and she seemed to be working like a fiend. At what, he had no idea, because Chloe wasn't sharing that information with him.

She wasn't sharing anything with him outside the bedroom.

Chloe couldn't deny him anything during their lovemaking, as he couldn't deny her. Their need of each other was too intense. But the intensity of the sex, the exhaustion and then the sense of dissatisfaction afterward, didn't allow for conversation.

It didn't surprise Nathaniel that Grigor had picked up on the fact there was still no claiming mark on Chloe's nape. Nathaniel made sure his scent was all over her, claiming her as his to any other dragon male, but without that bite...

Nathaniel knew his eldest brother now liked and approved of Chloe as his mate, that Grigor respected her after she had stood up to him at their initial meeting. In an elder brother sort of way, of course; Nathaniel wouldn't have tolerated anything else.

Even so, Nathaniel's relationship with Chloe was private to the two of them. "We still have one more week," he assured his brother abruptly.

Grigor looked set to argue, but something in Nathaniel's expression must have warned him against doing so. "Dylan says both your blood tests are holding at the same level as when you returned from Iceland."

"Yes." Dylan had told him the same thing every time he checked the blood they had agreed to let him have every three days. Nathaniel didn't expect their blood to change until after—if, they completed the mating.

Whatever Grigor saw in his expression, he decided not to pursue that subject either. "I've done as we all agreed and contacted Vladimir. He and his brothers will be arriving here later tonight, so hopefully we will know more then."

There had been a family meeting once they were all back in Wales, the other brothers as surprised as Nathaniel that Grigor had been in touch with a Russian clan of dragons for the past eighteen months. His brothers weren't as unforgiving as Nathaniel, possibly because none of them had recently found their mate.

The outcome of the meeting of the Pendragon dragons had been the decision for the two clans to meet up and share whatever information they had regarding mates. Now that Nathaniel had found Chloe, it was hoped there would be more women out there with that trace of dragon DNA in their blood, which would also allow them to become dragon mates.

The two clans were different, of course. Nathaniel and his brothers were goddess born, the Russian clan dragon born, but it was hoped there were enough similarities that a conversation between all of them would be constructive. Unfortunately, dragons were also territorial, so they could only hope the meeting wouldn't deteriorate into a stance of aggression.

"Good," he acknowledged Grigor's comment.

His brother said nothing else for several seconds, and then he sighed. "You're still angry with me."

Nathaniel shook his head. "It would have been nice to know about the Russians, but none of us could have known I would meet my mate in the way I did." He also doubted knowing of the Russian dragon clan would have made the slightest difference to that. One minute, he and Chloe had been at loggerheads; the next, they couldn't keep their hands—or mouths, or anything else—off each other.

Grigor rested his hip against the side of Nathaniel's desk. "Will Chloe want to be there?"

"I—"

"I won't be here this evening." Chloe answered that question herself as she entered the room. "So you boys can have your little meeting all on your own," she added derisively.

"We're hardly boys," Grigor muttered disgustedly.

"Do you leave you socks on the floor in the bedroom rather than putting them in the wash basket? Drink a pint of milk straight from the carton? Watch every team sport on television? Play poker for money one night a week?" Chloe quoted things she had noted all of the Pendragon men doing. "Then you're still boys," she added with satisfaction when neither Nathaniel nor Grigor could deny doing those things.

She was also delaying Nathaniel's response to her announcement she wouldn't be here this evening. Because she knew there would be one. She'd barely stepped foot outside the castle since their return from Iceland.

She'd met all the Pendragon men now, the healer Dylan, infuriating Deryk, gruff Bryn, nerdy Aeron, remote Rhys, scary Garrett, and dominating Grigor. All of them, without exception, were arrogance personified. With good reason; they were, as Nathaniel had stated, the biggest predator around and so top of the food chain. Other animals couldn't help but be totally aware of that.

Including Chloe.

These men were overwhelming individually; together, they were formidable.

Meeting up with another clan of equally intimidating dragons wasn't on Chloe's wish list for her immediate future.

Besides, she had something else she wanted to do today. "Would you mind giving us the room?" she asked Grigor politely, not looking at Nathaniel but still able to sense his piercing gaze was fixed on her.

Chloe had noticed over the past two weeks that more and more, she was able to sense Nathaniel's moods. His confusion when she spent ten hours a day in her office. His hurt that she didn't share more of herself with him. His rising desire as they ate dinner with his brothers; that last was a given after spending so many hours apart. His intensity of emotion as they made love for hours in his bed every night.

Nathaniel's mood right now had become volatile following her announcement she wouldn't be here this evening.

A mood Grigor seemed aware of too as he straightened. "I have some work to do, anyway."

"Of course you do," Chloe taunted; she and Grigor had come to a tacit understanding of each other the past couple of weeks, one based on mutual respect. She accepted he was an arrogant bastard, and he accepted she wasn't taking any of it. Ta-da, mutual respect.

As expected, Nathaniel waited only long enough for his brother to leave the room before rising to his feet and towering over her. "Where are you going to be this evening?"

"London," Chloe answered without hesitation. Nathaniel could be as intimidating as he liked, she wasn't going to back down. He wouldn't appreciate it if she did. "I'm leaving later this morning, if you'll drive me to the train station?"

His jaw was tight. "You've made your decision?"

"I'm only going for a few days," she assured him gently. "I'll be back before the three weeks is up."

"And if you sicken while you are away?"

"Then I'll call you." So far, she hadn't felt any of the weakening the Russian dragon's mate had suffered.

"Why do you have to leave at all? Does it have something to do with the fact we're living here with all my brothers and there's little privacy? Because if so, we can have plans drawn up to build a house of our own on the other side of the mountain."

"It isn't anything to do with that." Chloe appreciated that the Pendragon men lived together for their own safety. She wasn't about to jeopardize Nathaniel's life. In any way. "Your brothers may all be a pain in the ass in their different ways, but no doubt they think that about me too. Besides, I've grown quite fond of them. Even Deryk has his moments," she added ruefully.

He nodded. "Then why are you going to London?"

She sighed. "I have things I need to do. Give notice on my apartment, collect some more clothes"—pack up her life—"and I can also drive my car back so that I have my own transport."

"I'm happy to drive you wherever you want to go."

"I'd rather have my own car."

"I'll come to London with you—"

"No," Chloe cut in sharply. "I need to do this on my own, Nathaniel," she added softly. "I think we'll both be okay, just for a few days."

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. "It probably won't be as intense as the first time, but it will still be painful for us to be apart for any length of time."

"I know." Chloe was searching for a way this would work for both of them. Not for selfish reasons, but because she knew herself well enough to know that she needed to be her own person within whatever relationship she and Nathaniel had together. Without that she would make Nathaniel's life as miserable as her own would be, something she didn't want to do. He deserved better. She was going to London for both their sakes; she just wasn't ready to tell him all her plans yet.

If being apart resulted in a few days of physical discomfort for both of them, then so be it. She was working toward the long-term—the very long term—not the short-term.

Nathaniel still looked unhappy. "How long do you intend to be away?"

"As I said, just a few days. I'll give you a call when I'm coming back."

"I would feel happier driving you to London and then you can drive yourself back when you're ready."

And then Chloe would have to go through the extra stress of making him leave again. Because she knew that once Nathaniel was in London with her, he wouldn't want to leave. "There's no point, and I'll be fine going on the train. Besides, you have that meeting tonight with the Russians."

Nathaniel breathed in deeply. "I'll miss you."

Chloe would miss him too. More than she could ever have imagined. Their fated mates thing might have been sudden and unexpected, but she had grown to like Nathaniel over the past few weeks. To more than like him.

Nathaniel might be a scary big-ass dragon, but he was also kind and considerate, had a great sense of humor, and always put her happiness above his own. He was also the most ruggedly handsome man she had ever met. In fact, Chloe would have liked him and had been attracted to him, even before this fated mates thing. Their mating also meant he would never leave her.

That provided a stability and certainty Chloe realized she badly needed after losing both her parents at a young age. She had no other family, and the Pendragon brothers, Nathaniel especially, now represented that to her.

Nathaniel was the perfect man, in fact.

Her perfect man.

After spending the past two weeks with him, Chloe had absolutely no doubt about that.

But she was also the same independent and self-supporting Chloe Evans she had always been. Those things were a part of her nature, and while Nathaniel might have assured her he was wealthy enough that she never had to work again, that wasn't enough for her. She might be fated to be a dragon's mate but she needed to earn her own money and have her own career, which was something she had been working toward these past weeks.

It was a little early to share the results of those labors with Nathaniel, but if everything worked out in London the way she hoped it might, she would happily tell him what her plans were for the future. Her future with him.

"I'll miss you too," she acknowledged ruefully. This man was now the center of her world, so how could she not miss him? "But I'll be back before you know it."

Nathaniel very much doubted that when he could already feel the pain of being apart from her. She had also taken a little too long to tell him she would miss him too. He was also plagued with numerous questions about her unexpected visit to London.

Would Chloe see Keith Watson while she was there?

What would be the outcome of such a meeting if she did?

Why couldn't she telephone her landlord and give notice on her apartment rather than going all the way to London to do it?

Why did she need "a few days" in London at all when she might fall sick any day?

Would she really miss him, or was she just paying lip service to his own comment he would miss her?

Too many questions and not enough answers. No answers at all, in fact.

But neither could Nathaniel insist she stay here with him. That would be wrong of him, on more levels than he cared to think about. Chloe was an independent woman, and even though he had no doubt he was her mate as she was his, that didn't give him the right to put limits on that part of her nature.

"Okay." He nodded abruptly. "But you'll call me and let me know you've arrived safely?"

She smiled her relief at his acquiescence as she stepped easily into his arms. "Of course. And you can call me after your meeting has finished, and tell me how things with Vlad and co went." Her eyes glowed with that mischief Nathaniel had grown to love as she made the Russian's name sound as if it came from a cheesy vampire movie.

He chuckled softly at her humor at the Russian's expense. "If you hear the roars all the way to London, then it didn't go well."

Although he was really hoping it wouldn't come to that. Cooperation between the two dragon clans would be a much better result.

Chloe had been away from London for only a little under three weeks, and yet it felt strange to be back in the city she had lived in all her life. She had grown used to the quiet of Wales. There was no constant sound of traffic there, no crowds of people to push her way through. Admittedly, there were none of her favorite coffee shops nearby either, but that was a small price to pay for the peace and beauty of Pendragon Castle.

The moment she stepped into her apartment, she realized how cold and empty it felt.

Because Nathaniel wasn't here.

She felt equally cold and empty without him.

Parting from Nathaniel at the train station had been more emotional than that physical pain it had been the first time. Chloe missed him, and not only because of the sex. She missed talking with him. Teasing him. Being held in the safety of his arms as she slept. Simply knowing he was there. That he would always be there.

Her apartment no longer felt like home to her, confirming Nathaniel was her home now. Not that Chloe had doubted it for a moment, but it gave her a warm feeling inside to know she was making the right decision.

Her answerphone was flashing with a dozen messages, none of which Chloe felt like dealing with. They were a part of her previous life, and she was more interested in her future.

To that end, she called Nathaniel quickly to tell him she had arrived safely. He seemed to want to talk, but Chloe kept the call short. She needed to shower and change her clothes before leaving her apartment to keep the appointment she'd made for later this afternoon.

It was after seven when she returned to the apartment. She'd turned down a dinner invitation from Tegan, one of her friends from university, and instead bought some Chinese food from the takeout a block down from her apartment. It was far too early for Nathaniel to call her, but she didn't want to be out in a restaurant when she took his call.

The answerphone was still flashing with all those messages, and rather than keep looking at it, she brought the machine over and listened to the messages while she ate the food straight from the cartons.

There were several calls from the newspapers she freelanced for, which she deleted.

A couple of calls from Keith, suggesting the two of them meet up for dinner, if she was over her snit. Which she also deleted.

The rest of the calls were from cold callers trying to sell her something. Also deleted.

This was her life before Nathaniel. Work. An ex-boyfriend she hadn't given a thought to and hadn't missed in the slightest the last two weeks. Cold calls from people she didn't know and didn't want to know. Eating take-out food alone, in a sterile apartment that had very little in it that said home.

What was she really giving up, and what was she gaining by staying in Wales with Nathaniel?

There was nothing in London of any importance for her any more.

And everything in Wales for her to return to.

Her mate Nathaniel, and all that entailed.

His seven annoying but somehow endearing brothers.

They were her family now.

Her future.

She wasn't going to bother staying away for a few days. There was no need when she had completed what she came here to do earlier today. When Nathaniel called her later tonight, she was going to tell him she was returning to Wales first thing tomorrow. That she was returning to him.

The other things she needed to tell him, she wanted to do in person.

Except Nathaniel didn't call her.
Chapter 15

Rather than spend the whole evening staring at four blank walls, Chloe switched on the television and watched a series of banal programs that did little to hold her attention.

She was too excited about the future, the future with Nathaniel, and couldn't wait to tell him the real reason she had come to London.

It was after one o'clock in the morning when she finally switched off the television, with no phone call from Nathaniel.

She went to bed and read a book until three o'clock in the morning, still with no call from Nathaniel.

Which was when she started to worry.

It could just be the meeting with the Russian dragons had ended late, and Nathaniel hadn't liked to phone and disturb her if she was sleeping.

Or maybe the evening had gone badly, the meeting merely a ruse the Russians had used to eliminate the Welsh dragons, and now Nathaniel couldn't call her?

Once that thought popped into her head, Chloe couldn't think of anything else.

If anything had happened to Nathaniel—

She told herself not to be silly. That the Russian dragons had known about the Pendragon brothers for eighteen months and not attacked, so why would they do so under the guise of an amicable meeting?

Maybe because dragons were territorial, and who knew what the Russians considered was their territory?

Chloe got out of bed, pacing the room as she put a call through to Nathaniel's cell phone, only for it to be picked up by voice mail.

She left the message: "Where are you? Why haven't you called me?" and then immediately felt silly for panicking and sounding needy all in the same breath.

The only reason she was here was to ensure Nathaniel had a mate that he deserved and was equal to him. She had nullified that independence with just eight words.

She should have driven back to Wales this evening. There was no reason for her to have continued to stay here now that her meeting had been successful. She—

Oh shit, someone had just stealthily opened the door to her apartment.

She had been away for almost three weeks, and someone decided to rob her apartment on the one night she intended spending here?

She needed a weapon of some kind before confronting them. Except she couldn't see anything in her bedroom that remotely resembled a weapon. Ah. She had matching lit lamps on the bedside cabinets either side of the bed, and the bases were made out of wood. One of those would have to do, once she'd removed the bulb and shade. Although she still felt pretty stupid standing behind the door of her bedroom waiting to hit someone over the head with a lampstand.

Stupid or not, she wasn't about to let someone rob her apartment without putting up a fight.

Her heart was beating so fast, she was in danger of having a heart attack, her breathing so shallow and choppy, she would start hyperventilating any second and pass out before the robber got as far as her bedroom—

Her gaze widened and remained transfixed on the door handle as it began to turn, her palms slightly damp with sweat as she tightly gripped the lamp, ready to raise it above her head the moment the door started to slowly open.

"Whoa!" Nathaniel put up an arm to fend off the wooden truncheon Chloe was about to bring down on his head.

"What— You— Nathaniel!" She finally settled on almost shouting his name. "What the hell are you doing here? More to the point, how did you get in?" She lowered the weapon to glare at him.

He decided to answer those questions one at a time. "I'm here because you're here. I let myself in with the spare key, given to me by the building supervisor when he fitted the new lock two weeks ago."

Her eyes narrowed. "Did you compel him to give you the spare key to my apartment?"

He winced. "I may have done."

"That is so wrong, Nathaniel." She gave a disgusted shake of her head.

Nathaniel hadn't known how Chloe would react to him coming here when he left Wales three hours ago to join her in London. He should have called her first, at least, and told her what his plans were. But he hadn't wanted her to say no to him again. He hated being apart from her, couldn't stand it another moment longer, which was why, as soon as the Russian dragons had left, he'd gone up to the roof and shifted into dragon before flying here. At four o'clock in the morning, it was mainly the druggies still on the streets, and if any of them saw his dragon land before shifting back to human form, he'd hoped they would put it down to the effect of their addiction.

Either way, he hadn't been able to remain in Wales any longer without Chloe.

Her absence caused an ache in his chest that wouldn't ease. An ache that had nothing to do with dragon mating and everything to do with Nathaniel missing Chloe.

The castle felt fucking empty without her in it. His bed felt empty without her in it. His life felt empty without her in it.

"Why are you here, Nathaniel?" Chloe repeated softly.

He swallowed before answering. "Because I love you. Me. Not my dragon, although I'm sure he loves you too," he assured her. "Not because of the mating either. Or the amazing sex. But because I love you," he continued at her silence. "I don't care if you won't mate with me. I just want you, in my life, for as long we have together. Days, maybe a week if we're lucky."

"Without the mating, you'll die after my human body dies..."

"And you think I'll want to live when you're no longer on this earth?" He gave a shake of his head. "Because I don't. I won't. I love you, Chloe," he repeated firmly. "And I will love you for however long you live, and feel nothing but relief when I follow you three weeks later."

Chloe had never dared hope, to dream, of a love like this ever being hers one day. It was...overwhelming to know Nathaniel loved her in such a deep and abiding way he would be happy go with her when the time came for her human body to die.

But she would rather he lived for her, not died for her.

She dropped the lampstand to the floor before stepping close to him and putting her arms about his waist. She rested her head against his chest and heard the reassuring sound of his heart beating. For her.

As always, she reveled in the clean and musky male smell of him as his arms came about her waist and he held her tightly. "I love you too, Nathaniel." She felt the sting of happy tears as she lifted her head to gaze up at him.

He blinked before kissing her, long and hard. "You left me..." he finally groaned.

"Only so that I could come back to you, stronger than ever."

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

Chloe gave a tearful smile. "You and your brothers are...magnificent is too small a word." She had watched all the brothers go off on missions the past two weeks, including Nathaniel. They had all carried their sense of chivalry with them all these years and now ran a security company in which they only ever took the side of the weak and those most in need. "I can't be a part of that, nor can I continue to be a journalist if I'm living permanently in Wales."

"You can." Nathaniel's arms tightened about her. "I can move here and live with you while you pursue your career. I never want you to be less than who and what you are because of me."

"You would hate it." She gave a choked laugh.

"Well. Yes. But I would do it for you."

"I'm so much more already because of you, Nathaniel," she assured him emotionally. "But now I also have a career I can still do while living in Wales."

His expression became wary. "What career?"

She grinned. "Did I tell you that my degree is in English, mainly literature, and that my master's is in journalism and publishing?"

He still looked guarded. "I don't believe so."

"Well, it is, because I originally wanted to be a writer. The journalism was only supposed to be a way of earning money so that I could use the rest of my time to write a novel." She smiled ruefully. "It didn't work out that way, of course. The journalism pays well and became bigger than it should have, and my novel was put permanently on the back burner. You've probably wondered what I've been doing the past two weeks shut away in my office for hours every day." She smiled self-derisively. "Well, I finally got around to writing a synopsis for a novel and passed it along to my friend Tegan, who's an editor. The synopsis was approved ten days ago, based on me submitting the first three chapters, which I did two days ago. Today, I met with Tegan and her immediate boss to discuss a contract for that book and the rest of the series. It isn't a literary masterpiece, but—"

"You're going to be an author?"

"I am," she confirmed proudly. "Because of you."

He looked puzzled. "Me?"

She chuckled ruefully. "I wrote our story, Nathaniel, with the names changed, of course. It seems dragon shifter romances are really popular right now, enough that I've been contracted to write eight books in a series."

"Eight?"

She grinned widely. "Eight brothers, eight dragons, eight books, with an option to write seven more on a clan of Russian dragons. Of course, Deryk and co need to get their act in gear regarding their own mates for me to be able to write the rest of the series, but I'm sure even Grigor will get there one day."

Nathaniel was completely bemused by both Chloe's ingenuity in using him and his brothers as a basis to write a series of books, and the fact that she was willing to change her life completely in order to be with him.

She dropped her arms to her sides as she stepped back. "I'm ready, Nathaniel."

He stared at her blankly. "Ready for what?"

"I love you, and I'm more than ready to be your mate," she assured him with tears of happiness in her eyes.

His breath was trapped in his lungs, his heart beating double time.

Chloe was ready.

To become his immortal mate.

He had hardly dared to hope these past two weeks. Knew exactly what Chloe would be giving up if she decided to be with him forever. He wanted her so badly, needed her in a way he had never needed anyone else, but his conscience said he had to make one last effort to make sure she knew what her life would be as his mate.

"Immortality is a double-edged sword, Chloe." He reached out to grasp the tops of her arms to stop himself from simply grabbing her and taking what he wanted. "Yes, we're immortal, but the people we care about and love, they all die."

She nodded. "Like Arthur and his Knights of the Rectangular Table?"

"Yes."

Chloe gave a shake of her head. "I don't have anyone like that. No family, only a few close friends I meet occasionally for coffee or lunch. I'm giving up very little, Nathaniel, and I'm gaining so much more. You," she teased as he looked puzzled. "But if you'd rather not—"

"Don't even think it, let alone say it!" Nathaniel muttered fiercely as he gathered her up in his arms and carried her over to lay her down on the bed before lying down beside her. He leaned on one of his elbows as he looked down at her, his hands moving up to frame either side of her face. "I love you, Chloe, and I promise you will never, ever have reason to doubt that love, or me."

Her fingers shook slightly as she cradled the side of his face. "I love you, Nathaniel, and I promise you will never ever have reason to doubt that love, or me."

They were their dragon vows.

Nathaniel kissed her long and lingeringly. "Will you marry me, Chloe Evans?"

"I will, Nathaniel Pendragon."

"Stay with me and love me, as long as we both shall live?"

Chloe nodded. "As long as you stay with me and love me as long as we both shall live."

"I will."

These were their human vows.

As was traditional, they sealed them with a kiss

"So," Chloe murmured several minutes later. "Are we going to mate or not?"

Nathaniel chuckled. This was the Chloe he knew and loved. Straightforward. Unafraid of anything, including him and his dragon. "Are you okay with waiting a few hours longer?" He looked about the modern apartment and dismissed it as the place for them to complete their mating. He had already considered his bedroom at Pendragon Castle and dismissed that too. "I'd like our mating to be in Iceland," he explained at her puzzled look.

"Perfect," she agreed without the slightest hesitation.

He grinned. "Okay, let's go to the top of the building and do this."

Chloe wondered if flying with a dragon would ever grow old. Somehow she doubted it. It was even more wondrous the second time, because the dragon holding her so securely in his arms was her dragon, one she loved with every fiber of her being, and who loved her in the same way.

She felt a little shy once they reached the complete privacy of Nathaniel's cave. "How do we do this?"

"The same way we usually do it." The smile could be heard in Nathaniel's voice. "Except this time, you'll be on your hands and knees facing away from me."

Chloe felt the heat coloring her cheeks. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "I thought that sounded a little yuck the first time you said it, but now it sounds...erotic," she acknowledged huskily.

"Oh, it will be," he promised. "Chloe..." He hesitated. "This may be...wilder than our usual lovemaking."

"I'm not made of glass," she assured him. "I'm your mate."

"That you are," he stated with satisfaction. "We're going in the hot spring first." He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the water's edge before placing her on her feet again to start undressing her. "You are so beautiful, my Chloe," he murmured appreciatively when she stood before him completely naked.

"Your turn." The difference in their height made it a little more difficult for Chloe to undress him. Nathaniel removed his boots and remained slightly bent down so that she could slip his T-shirt over his head before moving down onto her knees to unfasten and remove his jeans and boxers.

She looked up at him as her hand stroked along the silky length of his bared cock, reveling in the wild and fiery glitter that ignited in his eyes, unsure if he was man or dragon at that moment. It didn't matter; she loved them both.

Her pussy clenched with her own need as she took his cock into her mouth and the sweet taste of his pre-cum exploded on her tongue. She licked and laved along that length before dipping her tongue in the slit at the top of the bulbous tip.

Nathaniel groaned, and his hands moved to grasp her shoulders as he pulled her away from him. "No more, love," he pleaded. "I'm not going to last." His hands on her arms drew her to her feet. "I'm going to be inside you when I come. So deep inside you, I'll never find my way out again."

Chloe shivered at the dark promise in his voice. "That's what I want too."

Nathaniel lifted her up in his arms before wading into the hot water and carrying her over to sit her on the ledge. "I'm going under the water."

"What—" Chloe broke off with a groan the moment Nathaniel pushed his shoulders between her thighs and she felt the long length of his tongue against her swollen folds.

She barely had time to draw a breath before she felt his hands spreading her pussy lips farther apart and his tongue thrust deep inside her. That roughness became a pleasurable and remorseless rasp against the knot of nerves inside her, sending Chloe gasping over the edge within seconds as she shuddered and convulsed in the throes of her release.

Nathaniel's head broke the surface of the water as he rose up to take possession of her lips with his, and Chloe realized, no matter how wild their lovemaking might have been in the past, Nathaniel had been gentle with her up to this point.

His lips ravaged and claimed hers, and all she could do was cling to his shoulders and allow herself to be swept along and revel in that dominance.

He was still kissing her when he lifted her up and carried her out of the water to follow her down as he laid her on the bed of furs. His cheeks were flushed, eyes glowing a brilliant green when he finally raised his head. "I can't wait any longer, love. Are you ready for me?"

Chloe pulled out of his arms to move up onto her elbows and knees before looking at him over her shoulder. "Does that answer your question?"

He moved onto his knees behind her.

Mine.

Nathaniel's dragon screamed the word inside his head at Chloe's show of submission, the heady perfume of her arousal invading his senses.

Her back was long and slender, with those two endearing dimples at the top of the twin globes of her bottom jutting higher than the rest of her body. His gaze was heated as he watched his fingers stroke along the cleft between those globes, reveling in Chloe's shudder of pleasure. Not tonight. But soon, he promised himself as his fingers went lower to stroke along her swollen pussy lips. She was so wet, his fingers slid easily inside her, readying her for what was to come.

Nathaniel removed his fingers and moved forward until the bulbous top of his cock was nestling against those slick pussy lips, bending forward so his chest was stretched along the length of her back. "The bite might hurt at first, but then the aphrodisiac will enter straight into your bloodstream and—"

"Nathaniel, how many times do I have to tell you I'm ready?" Her voice was laced with impatience.

Nathaniel felt his control slip completely as his hips thrust forward. He groaned as his cock entered her slick heat. "Always so tight," he growled as he gripped her hips and pushed in farther, inch by inch, until Chloe was completely impaled on his hard length.

Chloe had never felt so full, tightening her inner muscles, wanting more as Nathaniel kept his thrusts slow and measured. She didn't want slow and measured; she wanted his loss of control, for him to take her in the way he needed to. In the way his dragon needed to.

"Harder," she encouraged breathlessly. "Do it, Nathaniel." She didn't give him a chance to respond as she pushed back onto that hard cock and felt him shudder against her, a tremor shaking his body. "Give me all of you," she begged. "Now."

She cried out as he slammed into her hard, the heat of his thighs briefly against her bottom before he withdrew and did it again. Again, and then again, his breath hot against the back of her neck.

"Touch your breasts for me," Nathaniel growled.

It was impossible to deny the command. Chloe's elbows remained on the bed to support her weight as her hands moved up to cup her breasts.

"Play with your nipples."

She groaned as she pleasured her own breasts, squeezing and pulling on the nipples, sending aching pleasure straight to her pussy.

"Don't stop until I tell you to," he instructed harshly.

Chloe knew he was going to bite her now, and she reacted instinctively as she bent her head forward in submission.

"Jesus..." Nathaniel rasped before sharp teeth bit into and latched on to the soft skin at her nape.

There was little or no pain. Chloe's screams were ones of pleasure as she felt Nathaniel sucking on her flesh and the heat of the aphrodisiac entering her bloodstream, increasing her need, her desire to be taken.

"Yes," Chloe groaned as she writhed against him, wanting him deeper. "Oh God, yes... Harder, Nathaniel. Take me harder." She pushed her bottom back against him, taking him deeper still as he pounded into her, meeting every one of those thrusts with a demand of her own.

Nathaniel growled with every thrust, stilling long minutes later as the swelling at the base of his cock locked him in place.

The barb stroked the sensitive knot of muscles inside her, setting off climax after climax, her pussy contracting tightly as she felt the heat of Nathaniel's cum pumping inside her.

Mated.

They were truly mated.

Forever.

Chloe had no idea whether it was hours or days later when she woke to find Nathaniel was already awake. His fingers were stroking possessively over the throbbing bite on her nape, causing her nipples to harden and between her thighs to throb and dampen.

She rolled over until she was lying on top of him, his cock lodged against her wet pussy lips. "Perhaps I should take you now."

He caressed the strands of silken hair from her cheeks. "Perhaps you should."

"Mate."

He smiled. "Mate."

Despite her fierce independence, Chloe had never been an aggressive lover, but it seemed becoming Nathaniel's mate had changed all that.

She reveled in her sexual dominance over him as she lifted up and took his cock inside her before claiming his lips for her own.

It was just as wild as the first time, Nathaniel once again locked inside her as they lay quietly together a long time later.

"What are you smiling about?" he mused.

"Lots of things." Her smile widened. "But mainly I was wondering if all romance authors are lucky enough to have such hands-on research."

Nathaniel chuckled. "I hope you don't think I'll ever let you carry out this research with any other dragon but me."

She looked shocked. "Of course not."

"Does your book series have a name?" he prompted curiously.

"It does." Chloe smiled. "It's called Dragon Hearts."
For news on upcoming releases in the Regency Sinners, Dragon Hearts, Regency Unlaced, Knight Security, and Alpha Series please sign up to my monthly mailing list/newsletter: http://www.eepurl.com/2rfzz

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About The Author

Carole Mortimer is a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, a Pioneer for Romance Romantic Times Award in 2014. She was recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her 'outstanding service to literature'. Carole has written over 225 contemporary, paranormal and Regency novels.

She is happily married to Peter. They have 6 sons, and live on the beautiful Isle of Man. She also loves to hear from Readers!
Other books by Carole Mortimer

Regency Sinners Series:

Wicked Torment (Regency Sinners 1)

Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2)

Wicked Scandal (Regency Sinners 3

More books to come in this series

Dragon Hearts – Contemporary paranormal

Nathaniel (Dragon Hearts 1)

Deryk (Dragon Hearts 2)

More book to come in this series

Regency Unlaced Series:

The Duke's Mistress (Book 1)

Claimed by the Marquis (Book 2)

Taken by the Earl (Book 3)

Pursued by the Viscount (Book 4)

Desired by a Lord (Book 5)

Captured by a Gentleman (Book 6)

Pleasured by a Duke (Book 7)

Seduced by a Marquis (Book 8)

Tamed by the Earl (Book 9)

Series is now complete

Knight Security Series: Spin-off to ALPHA series

Resisting Alexandre (Knight Security 0.5)

Defying Asher (Knight Security 1)

Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2)

Capturing Caleb (Knight Security 3)

Tempting Zander (Knight Security 4)

Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5)

Seducing Ethan (Knight Security 6)

Series now complete

ALPHA Series:

Christmas Alpha (Alpha 1)

Dark Alpha (Alpha 2)

Shadow Alpha (Alpha 3) Author's 200th Book

Midnight Alpha (Alpha 4)

Renegade Alpha (Alpha 5)

Warrior Alpha (Alpha 6)

Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7)

Savage Alpha (Alpha 8)

Series is now complete
