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“BLOODY HELL, COUSIN, ye know Phelan wouldnae hurt ye.” Ethyn frowned at Marek. “So ye best not have hurt her in return!”
As it turned out, the second fiery line they had seen on Tiernan’s tattoo had been Marek magically thrust along on their journey as well. Something he didn’t seem all that thrilled about. Mainly because Phelan had been tracking him as though he were the prey and she the predator. Which was downright intolerable for any dragon, let alone an alpha like his brother.
“I didnae hurt the bloody beast,” Marek muttered. “But she’d do well to keep her distance from here on out.”
However frustrated Marek might be, he wouldn’t hurt the wolf any more than Cray would. She’d been Ethyn’s unfailing protector for years, and they would never harm something that watched over kin like that.
“’Tis good to have you along.” Cray clasped Marek’s shoulder and grinned. “Mayhap we’ll get the chance to fight alongside each other.”
Marek glanced at him in surprise, no doubt because his spirits were improved since he last saw him. “Aye, Brother, ‘twould be good.” He nodded hello to everyone else before homing in on Madison, sensing that she had shifted. “You did good, lass.” He nodded with approval at both her and Cray. “You both did.”
“She’s a bloody beautiful dragon, Brother,” Marek praised telepathically before he said the last thing Cray expected. “She’ll give you good strong offspring.”
Having clearly caught that, Madison choked on the water she’d just sipped. As to his own response, he felt nothing short of bone-chilling fear. Terror he knew his brother sensed yet didn’t respond to with surprise. Instead, shockingly enough, his level gaze met Cray’s in understanding.
Marek knew.
How, though, when he had buried his secret so very deep? So far down inside him, nobody should have ever known about his unborn bairn. Now both Madison and Marek knew?
Tiernan sighed and shook his head at his tattoo before looking at Julie. “There is only one way to decipher this now, aye?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and contemplated the lines going in different directions on his magical compass. One had remained fiery. The other was how sunlight had originally looked on Tiernan and Julie’s adventure. A single straight, unwavering line of light.
“I’d say things are clear enough.” Julie glanced at Madison, Cray, and Marek. “Dragons are supposed to go in one direction.” Her eyes flickered over everyone else. “Non-dragons in another.”
“Aye.” Tiernan looked north. “So the dragons to David and the rest of us in a direction I dinnae remember being related to anything historical.”
Julie nodded. “That’d be my guess.”
“Really?” Madison frowned at her friends. “We have to go in separate directions?” Her brows pulled together. “What if it’s a trap of some sort? What if the brotherhood is manipulating the tattoo somehow?”
“I don’t think they are,” Julie replied. “This compass is too connected to Tiernan and those with MacLomain blood to lead them astray.”
Madison nodded but didn’t seem convinced. “I hope so.” Her gaze went to Chloe’s swollen stomach, her inner dragon thinking the same thing as Cray. “Because I would think dragons could protect you guys better than anyone.”
“Maybe dragons who didn’t have fluctuating magic and were repressed,” Julie conceded, giving Cray and Marek an apologetic look. “Don’t worry. We won’t let anything happen to Chloe’s baby. Our magic is pretty strong, and the magic from Aidan’s Claddagh ring is right up there too.”
“Aye,” Aidan agreed. “’Twill protect Chloe no matter what.”
Cray knew his cousin would rather she be safely behind the walls of Hamilton castle, but Chloe was far too stubborn, insisting she needed to help. The fact of the matter was nobody could manipulate the trees like she could, harnessing their magic for protection.
“’Tis good we brought the extra horse,” Aidan commented, gesturing at Marek. “One of the bigger horses at that.”
As it were, they had already brought two. One for Ethyn. The other for Cray and Madison because she would be riding with him. Always with him now that he knew where she stood. He just needed to figure out where he stood. How he would handle things. It was one thing to have a plan that ended with him handing her over to Ethyn. Another thing altogether knowing she might very well remain by his side instead.
“Be careful, you guys.” Madison hugged her friends goodbye as they prepared to depart. “Hopefully, I’ll see you again soon.”
“I’m sure you will,” Julie said. “In the meantime, I imagine Grant will remain our go-between until everyone can communicate telepathically again without an issue.”
“Are you sure you’re not supposed to travel with us?” Madison asked Ethyn, who shook his head and reminded her he wasn’t a dragon.
“Besides,” he embraced her, chuckling, “’tis probably best if Phelan steer clear of Marek and Cray for a while.”
Cray couldn’t agree more...for the most part. Though his dragon had no use for the wolf, his human half appreciated it protecting Madison last night. Even if it was from him.
“Is it me, or did Ethyn seem different when we left?” Madison asked him later that day.
She was still getting used to riding a horse and readjusting herself to the point of distraction. Not so much obsessively, but squirming her backside as if trying to get comfortable. It was driving his poor cock to distraction, and he couldn’t take much more. Something he had warned her about many times now. If she didn't stop moving, it would dispel their deal and earn her a good romp before they got to know each other any better.
As it were, they had already made a good start of getting to know each other as they chatted throughout the day. Fixation with numbers and all, he found her entertaining and truly enjoyable. But alas, in the end, he was too sexually frustrated to think straight as a whole. Between her meddling in his mind on Aidan and Chloe’s adventure, then tempting him to distraction since they traveled back to Scotland, he was strained. Now with her squirmy arse brushing his cock every other breath all day long, he was about done for.
And not for the first time, he let her know it.
“I dinnae know about Ethyn seeming different,” he grumbled, his mood foul indeed as the sun lowered and the woodland thickened. “I do know about me, though, and the state ye’ve got my—”
“I know, I know,” she muttered even as she bloody well went and squirmed again. “Just try to focus on something else. Like maybe—”
“What ‘twill be like when I finally feast my eyes on what’s been teasing me all day,” he growled, clamping his hand down on her hip when she went to squirm again. He murmured in her ear, making sure she caught the roll of his R, so she knew how good he was with his tongue. “When I watch you whilst I ravish what awaits me betwixt yer thighs. The source of the sweet scent ye’ve been teasing me with all day.”
A tremble of awareness rippled through her body. Her scent only grew stronger, not for the first time earning them a slew of curses from his brother. Marek had taken to riding a ways off earlier but muttered on more than one occasion that it would never be far enough until things were taken care of.
Something Cray agreed with completely.
“It’s just way too fast,” she grumbled when he knew she’d rather purr. He had caught her less-than-prudish thoughts throughout the day. Carnal thoughts not only brought on by feeling his arousal but because her dragon had broken out of its cage.
Now it wanted her to follow.
He felt her struggling with it but not as hard as she could be. Rather her heart raced for him. Her skin heated against him. Her breath caught the numerous times he pressed his hips forward, not just to still her but to remind her of what waited.
“’Tis supposed to be fast,” he replied, knowing she referred to him wanting to lay with her so soon. What else could it be when she didn’t approve of sleeping with men she’d just met? Which was not the case here, and he reminded her of that. “Besides, we have known each other for some time now if you count how long you’ve been in my mind. Along those lines, ‘tis also safe to say having been so verra much a part of my mind, that you know me far better than anyone else, aye?”
“Yeah, which means I pretty much know one thing about you.” She chuckled and met his eyes over her shoulder. “Seriously, you’re going to use that kind of logic when you’ve had nothing but a one-track mind? One that by no means was on me the whole time?” Her brows shot up, distinct irritation in her voice now. “First, the twelve women I had to listen to you lust after before meeting me then the two you...”
When her pupils flared, and her dragon eyes sizzled, he realized just how close their dragons had grown in a short period of time. “You didn’t do it.” Her voice dropped to a shocked whisper when she realized he hadn’t bedded the women back at his castle. “You couldn’t because...”
“Nay, I couldnae,” he groused, figuring if this was what it took to get betwixt her thighs, then so be it. “Not when ‘twas you I envisioned the whole time.” Then, because he liked the way she licked her lips when she was nervous, envisioning them slick with his seed, he made sure she got the proper visual. “Not when only you on your knees would satisfy me.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb across her full lower lip. “Not when ‘twas these verra lips I want to see straining around my—”
“Bloody hell, little brother,” Marek cursed, interrupting a fantasy he fully intended to execute. “Get a hold of yourself and pay attention. We are being followed.”
“Aye, I know,” he muttered, closing the distance between him and Marek. “’Tis the beastie again.”
“I thought so,” Madison exclaimed, scanning the forest behind them. “Why is Phelan following us, instead of Ethyn?”
“’Tis impossible to know.” Marek shook his head. “’Tis wreaking havoc with my dragon, though.” He steered his horse down a decline gesturing that they follow. “There’s shelter and water for bathing down this way. We’ll stop for the night, and I’ll go hunt.”
“We’re making him grumpy,” Madison said into his mind. “So, start behaving.”
“Stop wiggling your arse then.” He clamped down on her other hip and steered the steed with his legs. “Or I will flip you around and see myself satisfied before you get off this bloody horse.”
“Impossible,” she muttered before he telepathically showed her how it could be done even without turning her. “Nothing is impossible when it comes to carnal pleasure.”
Especially, he imagined, with a fellow dragon. With her.
His brother had found a good spot for the night, consisting of a few well-hidden caves near an equally sheltered river. Though he caught the scent of an incoming storm, it was still a ways out, allowing for a striking sunset to provide ample lighting while they settled in.
“It really is beautiful here, isn’t it?” Madison leaned against a rock admiring the sky almost as much as he was admiring her. “So peaceful.”
“Aye, when everyone’s not busy warring with each other.” He leaned against the rock beside her, curious where she stood with all this. What she made of her friends ending up here. Of her possibly ending up here. “Could you envision living here? Being part of this life?”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “And I’m just not sure.”
Despite the sinking sensation in his gut, he kept his expression neutral. The idea of her returning to the future bothered him far more than he anticipated. Which made him realize how dangerously close he was to being in the same position he’d been in with Maeve.
“Ye dinnae think ye want to stay then?” he murmured, his brogue thickening with emotion.
“My parents might be gone now, but I still have a job,” she said softly, absently straightening a ring that was already perfectly aligned. “I mean, what use would I be here?”
He knew she wasn’t looking at him on purpose.
“I don’t know anything about this era,” she went on. “What good would an accountant be?”
Though moments away from playing it safe and stalking off, to hell with the lass leaving him, he stood his ground and slowly but surely walked into a trap he didn’t see coming.
“I am sure Marek could use your expertise,” he replied. “Our people pay taxes for protection and ‘tis a sizeable clan overlooking many. A mind like yours helping to organize all that goes into running things smoothly would be most welcome.”
“Maybe,” she murmured, still not looking at him. “Honestly, I think the biggest selling points would be being close to my friends...and being around those like me. Learning about what I am. Where I truly fit in this world.”
Her eyes slid to him, her words far bolder than anticipated, telling him she’d been giving things a great deal of thought without him being the wiser. That despite her hesitation, she knew precisely what she intended to do.
Just not who she would do it with.
“One thing I have figured out is that I do belong with a dragon.” She shrugged, remarkably matter of fact and to the point. “Now, it’s up to you whether that’s you or your brother.”
