Imre: Drago Knights MC (Mating Fever) (3 page)

“Don’t you want to know what it’s like with a gold nymph? I definitely want to know what it’s like with a dragon.” Then her expression softened. “I want to know what it’s like with you.”

O
peration Humiliate Herself
was in full swing.

He’d jumped into the dark waters of the swamp rather than have sex with her.

He even had Mating Fever and still denied her. What was she doing wrong?

Then it hit her. He didn’t want to be tied to someone who was only looking for something temporary. That made total sense.

But really, she wasn’t going to stand for this denying of the Mating Fever. She liked him. He liked her. She’d decided he was the one and by gods, he would be the one.

“You know,” she said to the empty air, “I don’t feel safe alone.”

Something bumped into the boat, shaking it.

“Nope, if you’re down there and I’m up here, I’m still alone. You couldn’t see super werewolf coming after me while you’re swimming.”

The boat shuddered again and she laughed. “Still afraid.”

He burst up out of the water, wings spread and in his dragon form, sweeping up to the sky and then he took human form, just before he landed, dripping wet on the pontoon.

“You play dirty, Aranka.”

“You bet I do. I told you that I want you, Imre. You want me, too. So why shouldn’t we?”

“Because I’ll want forever.”

“I can’t promise you that, but it could be an adventure. I don’t know how people can ever promise each other forever when they don’t know what’s around the next corner. I’ll promise to go with you as long as we’re on the same journey. That I can give you.”

“It’s better to let it pass. To let it fade.”

“For who?” she asked. “Not me. Not you.”

“Have you thought this through? We don’t have protection.”

“I do. In my bag. Just in case.” She smiled.

He was very naked and his cock was very hard and for the first time, she felt a little bit intimidated by the prospect of having that inside of her.

“Then come here.”

She took a deep breath and walked over to him slowly, as naked as he was, but feeling so much more vulnerable.

That’s when a lone howl split the night, and it was no natural sound.

“What the hell was that?” Aranka peered out into the darkness, not really needing an answer, but hoping against hope he’d tell her it was some kind of bird. That it was anything, but what she knew it was.

A werewolf.

If this was the hunter turned wolf Peter Breslin, there was nothing to do but run. He was immune to silver.

“I’ll see if I can find him. Do not move from this spot, Aranka. This is one of those times I need to know exactly where you are.”

“I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

He took to the skies and the night was deathly quiet, just as Pim had described.

Aranka gathered her clothes quickly and slipped them on, every rustle of fabric echoed in her ears like a canon. She held out her hands and searched for any veins of gold that could offer them an avenue of escape. She wasn’t sure if she could drag Imre with her in dragon form, but in his bipedal form, she could.

Just in case his wings weren’t an option.

It felt like he was gone forever, but she knew it was only seconds. She heard the howl again, but it wasn’t alone. Two more joined in the unholy chorus.

Was it a whole pack?

She schooled her breathing and tried to calm down. Aranka knew she’d be spraying pheromones everywhere and they could smell it.

Breathing deeply, she reminded herself of the werewolves she knew who were good people. Who were her friends. Just because they were out gallivanting in the swamp didn’t mean they were trying to hurt people.

The Big Scary they’d been talking about, he’d be out alone. Right?

Right.

She breathed out.

Except, Pim had been talking about disappearing children. Bloody—nope, not going to think about that now.

The silence was deafening, and her heartbeat continued to thud in her ears.

Imre returned, still in his dragon form and he slipped down into the water next to the pontoon. Perking his head up above the water, he looked a little bit like the gators they’d been talking so much about.

If she hadn’t been terrified out of her mind, she’d have giggled.

“There’s more than one pack on the loose. The swamp is crawling with them. The howls you heard were fighting. I don’t want to risk engaging them until we know more about what’s going on here. So we need to make our exit,” he whispered.

She knew exactly what he was about to suggest. They’d have to leave the pontoon behind; the sound of the engine would draw all the attention they didn’t want.

“You can ride on my back. Keep your hands and feet out of the water and we’ll be fine.”

Fuck it
. It would be an adventure. The swamp was beautiful and she’d a tour like no other.

Aranka nodded and climbed over the side, easing down onto his back, holding on to his neck. He spread his wings and they began to drift.

They moved almost silently through the water and when the howls sounded again, they were much farther away. She saw movement around them, the gators fleeing Imre. She leaned over to get a closer look.

A light flickered a few feet from them, then another, and another until it was almost a swarm. They weren’t lightning bugs, they were something else.

“Don’t look at them.” He huffed a puff of smoke at them and they scattered.

“What are they?”

“Will-O-the-Wisps. Or fairy lights. They’ll lead you to your doom and then they feed on your soul.”

“Yay for avoiding our demise? I wonder if they led others to the werewolves? Do you think we could catch one?”

“And do what with it?”

“I don’t know. Threaten to dress it up like Tinkerbell until it talks?”

“I don’t think they can talk. They dance and flicker. That’s about it.”

“They know enough to be afraid of you.”

“Shh. They could still hear us. Five minutes, Aranka.”

She settled and watched the scenery go by and tried to enjoy the moment, ignoring the fact they were fleeing from werewolves. This wasn’t an experience she was likely to forget.

Her limbs were suddenly heavy, but somehow electric, too. Gold veins ran through this swamp. She hadn’t felt them before, but now… they were huge.

Aranka opened her mouth to speak, but remembered she was supposed to be quiet for five minutes.

Being quiet was hard. Practically torture.

Especially when she felt the presence of the gold veins again. There was something about them, something familiar.

The gold nymph king! Her father! The veins bore the remnants of his touch.

She didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified, maybe both.

“He’s been here,” she said when they finally made shore and he returned to his mortal form.

“How can you tell?”

“I can feel him in the gold.”

“There’s gold in this swamp? I couldn’t smell it.”

“It’s down deep, so deep that only someone who can call the gold, or travel through it would be able to sense it.”

“Still.” Imre shook his head. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“I know.” She pressed her lips together and looked around. “But he’s been here. He’s still alive.” The words seemed to slam back into her after she’d said them. Because it was like giving voice to the possibility that he wouldn’t be alive when they found him.

If they found him.

Her father, the man who was her rock, her foundation, practically her whole world had been taken from her and it was a very real possibility she wouldn’t get him back.

The ground rumbled beneath them and the earth began to crack—a slow, deep splitting of the earth.

Her body was on fire, her fingers tingling and the pull of the gold echoed in her bones. It rose up in stalactite formations, golden swords thrusting up to stab at whatever had caused her this kind of pain.

The howls sounded again and this time, they were closer.

“They’ve found us. I’m sorry!” Aranka cried.

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Look.” He pointed and there, in a clearing were thirteen bikes, and piles of clothes. Jackets slung on all of the bikes had Headhunter patches.

“Oh my god. What have they done?”

“Something terrible,” Imre agreed. “We have to fly.”

“I’m ready.”

Imre leapt into the air, his Change taking him just as the trees around them rustled with the movement of large animals—werewolves.

Aranka watched as they converged on the spot where she and Imre had just been standing, claws and teeth out, a sentient madness in their eyes and when one leapt at them, Imre opened his mouth and sprayed him with fire.

He howled in pain, screaming, but he didn’t die and the stench of burned hair clung in the atmosphere long after they were out of range.

The bikes and the clothes, however, were not immune to the flame and they began to burn, burning rubber and black, thick smoke curling into the night.

And the gold, still standing tall, evidence of her presence she was unable to conceal.

Imre flew higher and higher until the night air was sticky no more, but crisp and cool. She tightened her arms around his neck and buried her face there, finding comfort in his closeness, even in his dragon form.

“Do you trust Pim?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t trust anyone but my brothers and I don’t believe in coincidences. They found us too easily. It was like they knew where we were and had come looking for us.”

“That’s what I was thinking. So where are we going to go tonight, Imre?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this. There’s a cemetery out behind one of plantations not too far from here. There’s a crypt we use as a safehouse here. No one knows about it but Mikolas, Ondrej, and me. You’ll be safe there.”

“Me? Where are you going?”

“I’ll be there with you.”

“You better.”

He laughed. “Can you tone down the gold summoning, though?”

“I didn’t even know I could do that.”

Imre descended. “Hold on, this might be a rough landing.”

But it wasn’t. Again, he managed to control his Change so that when he took human form, he still had his dragon wings and they touched down lightly and his wings receded.

The cemetery was beautiful, peaceful. There were flowers all around and the old crypts had lovely stonework. She saw several raised up graves that had metal bars welded over them. “What’s that?”

“Zombies.”

“No, really.”

“Yeah, really. They did it in Europe to prevent the dead from returning as vampires, but down here, it’s to keep their loved ones from rising as zombies if they’ve cursed by a
bokor
- a voodoo sorcerer.”

He walked up to one of the oldest crypts and pushed aside a piece of statuary that revealed an electronic keypad with thumbprint identification and the crypt door turned inward.

“Come on.”

She followed him inside, through a reinforced steel door, and saw it was like the swankest hotel suite she’d ever seen. If it belonged to arms dealers. One wall was a veritable treasure trove of weapons and defense paraphernalia, a large modern kitchen that was all stainless steel, another wall was a computer system the flickered to life when they entered.

“The bathroom’s to the left if you want to take a shower.” He went immediately to the computer system and began typing.

“What are you doing?” she asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“Checking in with Ondrej. Feeding information to our central networking system and tracking our assets.”

“I didn’t know it was this involved.”

“You thought we just cruised around on our motorcycles without a fuck to give?”

“I assume you gave all the fucks.” She grinned. “But kind of. I mean… you’re so high-tech.”

“We’ve got pods like this everywhere we have a chapter.”

“Should you be telling me this?”

“Your sister is going to be getting the tour, so why not you?”

Why not her, indeed?

“They wouldn’t trust me with this. They’d assume I’d blab it, or break it…”

“You can’t break it, Aranka.”

“Oh, trust me. If it’s a thing that can break, I’m the one to do it.”

Imre shook his head and waved off her words. “Nah. I break shit, too. Some people better at other things and that’s okay.”

“Did Pim betray us?”

“I’m checking his bank accounts now, but I’m sure he betrayed us. I just need to figure out if it was willingly or if the Headhunters have something on him.”

“Your loyalty is a beautiful and terrible thing, Imre.”

“Why do you say that? Wouldn’t you want the benefit of the doubt?”

“I’d want it, but if I was a piece of fuck like Pim, I wouldn’t deserve it.” She shook her head.

“So, you’re perfect?”

“Far from it, but I would never betray my friends or family.”

“Not even to save your father?”

“I wouldn’t have to betray you. I trust you enough that I could tell you what happened and you’d help me.”

“You know me that well, you think?” He cocked his head to the side as if daring her to say she did.

She accepted the dare, because she did know him that well already. It was a sure knowledge she could feel in every fiber of her being. “Yeah, I do.”

He smiled then. “I guess you do.”

“I handled the royal accounts for my father. I can help look for suspect transactions, if you want.”

“I definitely want.” Imre grabbed her hand, but then he closed his eyes.

She could see that he was fighting against something, some inner turmoil.

“What’s wrong?”

“Go and get cleaned up. Rest. When you’re done, you can take a crack and this. Okay?”

“Did I do something?” She reached up with her other hand to touch his face.

When he opened his eyes, they were the bright, glowing emerald green. His dragon eyes, and they were beautiful.

“My dragon wants what it can’t have.”

“Your dragon can have anything it wants. So can you.”

“No, I can’t. You already said you don’t want forever.”

“How can I know if I want forever? My biology isn’t like yours. I don’t know what I want tomorrow. Let alone forever. God, it’s… forever.” She gave him a soft smile. “I know what I want right now, though.”

She leaned in and pressed her lips to his mouth.

He shuddered under her kiss, his hands not touching her, no contact between them except their lips.