Stone Passions Trilogy (123 page)

You don’t have much time to gawk, Dragon-Mate
, Fray’s low voice murmured in her head, startling her out of her reverie.
Get a room here and sneak your gargoyle in through the back door.

Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, she saw the quaint hostel not fifteen feet from where their time bubble sat. With a delighted laugh, she went in, got the key to a room and snuck Armand in through the kitchen with no one the wiser. And as soon as the sun set, he entered her, joining their bodies and beginning the ritual of giving her his nights.

Smiling up at him, feeling him in her, she still couldn’t quite believe he was finally giving her his nights. Her nerves were vibrating in excitement and her heart was racing in her chest. He was finally giving her his nights!

“I want you to promise me something, love,” he murmured, his eyes moving over her face as if to memorize her features.

“Anything,” she agreed easily. She would promise him the world.

Licking his lips and then swallowing, he let out a breath, “If you change your mind before we complete the ritual….”

She slammed her hand over his mouth to stop him from saying such foolish words. “I’m not going to change my mind, love. Wild zombies couldn’t keep me from making love to you in one month’s time to become yours completely.”

He smiled against her lips but his eyes were still troubled and she knew that this was important to him. Reluctantly, her body trembling with emotion, she pulled her hand away and let him speak. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Will you spend my last night with me instead of leaving me to face it on my own?”

Tears welled in her eyes at the desolation in his words. Sliding her arms around his neck, she held him to her, hugging him and loving him and silently promising him that she was never going to leave him. Turning her head, she kissed his neck, tasting his salty, male skin with her tongue before nipping the tender flesh and marking him.

His body twitched as he raised himself over her and chuckled. “Careful, love, I might take it upon myself to mark you as well.”

“Oh, do,” she begged, tilting her head back to expose her throat to his hungry gaze. Instead of biting her, he covered her with his body and kissed her with his lips. As he trailed kisses along her jaw, she murmured, “Or this is nice, too.”

She felt Fray flow over her skin of her belly until suddenly he wasn’t there. Panicking at the loss, she nudged Armand’s torso off her at the same time he suddenly sat straight up, carefully keeping their bodies locked together.

“What the hell?” he swore, gazing down at his chest where a golden Fray was tattooed. Armand’s face contorted in pain and he ground his teeth together as the dragon made himself comfortable on Armand's hard belly. “It burns.”

Not knowing what to do, Ferris was going to soothe his burning flesh but stopped when Fray glared at her from a single eye. Helplessly, she watched as Fray peeled away from Armand, as Armand squeezed his eyes shut in torment. As soon as Fray was detached from Armand’s body, he seemed to wilt, falling to the bed in a completely boneless mass.

“He’s flayed me alive, love, and I’m afraid to look,” Armand ground out, his fingers curling into the flesh of her ass, bruising her tender skin.

But Ferris barely felt it as she stared at the gorgeous white dragon tattooed on Armand’s chest. Her stunned gaze moved towards Fray, whose exhausted body was sprawled out on the bed next to them He opened a jeweled eye and looked at her in exhausted satisfaction, “It is my mate Zilahr.”

“She’s beautiful,” Ferris breathed, sitting up and running a finger along the curve of Zilahr’s form, feeling Armand’s skin beneath her touch. His stomach caved in as she traced the white dragon’s tail and she smiled, remembering how ticklish he got, especially during sex. “Look, love.

Almost hesitantly, Armand looked down and she knew the moment he saw Zilahr: his entire body became incredibly still. His breath rushed past his lips as he ran a trembling hand over the tattoo of the white dragon, who shivered in pleasure, her lips curling up in a smile. She opened an emerald green eye and stared back at her new Dragon-Mate. Armand’s eyes closed in painful joy and he whispered, “She’s talking to me.”

Emotions played out over Armand’s face as he got to know his dragon but he never removed his hand from Ferris’s hip, touching her as if she would disappear if he let go. The thought made her smile because they were intimately joined and even if they weren’t she had no intention of ever leaving him.

Falling back onto the bed, Ferris grinned until her face hurt, so madly in love with Armand and so excited that he had his own dragon. She turned her head to face Fray and held her hand out to him so he didn’t have to move very far to settle back onto her skin. As he slowly climbed onto her arm, she murmured, “I didn’t know you carried your mate with you all of this time.”

“It is a gift that not all dragons get to experience,” he rumbled, fusing to the skin of her arm, covering her from wrist to shoulder.
I am most fortunate my Dragon-Mate found her True Love.

“Why didn’t you reveal her sooner?” Ferris asked as she simply watched Armand, loving him so much it was almost painful.

It hadn’t been the time
, he said on a sigh and Ferris felt a little guilty for keeping him from his slumber but she wanted to know.
Now, the two of you are bound no matter what. Even imps cannot keep you apart
.

Ferris’s breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t even considered the imps who had been instrumental in almost keeping her aunt from a lifetime with her gargoyle mate. In Ferris’s time, the imps were her friends, or rather, they weren’t her enemies, and Ajreis was her best friend. Here, now in the past, Ajreis didn’t even know who she was. Clearing her throat, she murmured, “Thank you, Fray.”

She felt his smile inside.
Zilahr is my equal in every way, Dragon-Mate, she will serve your beloved well
.

The man she loved finally opened his eyes and gazed down at her with the most beautiful, serene smile and she felt all warm and fluffy inside. His green eyes darkened and his smile faltered as his gaze roamed over her naked body. With a wicked grin, he crushed her beneath him and claimed her lips in a fiery kiss.

“We should have stayed in London,” Ferris fretted as they made their way through the crowds at the amusement park in Florida nearly three weeks later. Armand was like a child in a candy store, excited to see the world with his no longer jaded eyes and Ferris loved it, even when she worried about interfering too much with the past. She could justify flying over the Atlantic Ocean with their dragon wings because they both had enough power to mask themselves. She could almost rationalize their decision to spend some time in the states, visiting attractions that attracted lots of people and yet provided anonymity.

She just didn’t understand Armand’s need to visit the Faerie Tale Land, a theme park that was modeled on classic faerie tales from around the world, from the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood to Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to the mythology of various cultures. Ferris worried that too many of the supernatural creatures would see them and word of their adventures would reach the wrong ears, though she couldn’t say whose ears those would be. But no one in the supernatural world would expect to see a gargoyle walking as a man beneath the sun so even if they recognized Armand they wouldn’t connect him to the gargoyle that sat on the roof of a castle in Saint Paul.

Armand looked at her with his wicked grin, bringing their joined hands up to his lips and kissing her fingers, “I’ve always wanted to visit this place but I was a gargoyle during the day. I may not have another chance.”

“Why didn’t you bring me here before?” she asked, watching his face light up with pleasure and happiness. He was so happy now, all of the time, and her heart hurt with the love she felt for him. She hadn’t thought it was possible to love him even more than she had when she was sixteen, when she was twenty-one, but she did. She loved him so much it sometimes frightened her.

The look he gave her was heated with promise, “I only had a month with you, love. I wasn’t going to share you with anyone.”

She felt the loopy grin appear, the one she always seemed to wear around Armand, especially when he was being so sweet and seductive. He was wearing a ridiculously tight tank top, showcasing his broad shoulders and muscled arms. Zilahr was wrapped around his left arm looking like an elaborate black and gray tattoo while Fray was wrapped around Ferris’s right arm in all of his golden glory. When they held hands, the two dragons touched

There were very few full sleeve tattoos so the two of them garnered a lot of attention, mostly positive but a few sneers. That is, until they looked up and saw the beautiful man attached to the tattooed arm. Then the sneers turned to sighs of longing, something Ferris could certainly sympathize with but didn’t worry about. Armand only had eyes for her and he never even looked at another woman. It was as if they didn’t exist. And when he kissed her, when he brushed his lips against the sensitive skin of her neck, the world ceased to exist. He kissed her breathless every chance he got.

“How do you feel about some cotton candy?” he purred, his lips tickling the shell of her ear.

“In general, I am for cotton candy,” she breathed, letting her eyes drift shut as he sent tingles of pleasure through her bloodstream with his heated breath. “I mean, what’s not to like about pure sugar that is colored and spun out to resemble giant, puffy clouds?”

She felt his smile against her neck, “Then how about some cotton candy?”

Grinning, she nodded her head and managed to open her eyes, “Sounds delicious.”

Leaning against him, grinning like a lunatic, she happened to look up and see a dark haired little girl standing all alone. She was dressed in a purple and pink fairy dress, complete with little fairy wings and she was absolutely adorable. As Ferris watched, large tears welled up in the girl’s big, blue eyes and Ferris’s heart went out to the little moppet. Tugging Armand’s hand, she led him over to the crying child. Squatting down, she offered a smile to the child who couldn’t be more than five or six years old. “Hey, there, sweetheart. Are you lost?”

The little girl nodded, her piggy tails bouncing and her fairy wings flapping. As she wiped her running nose with the back of her arm, she spoke, “I wasn’t supposed to wander off but I wanted to get my sister something because she’s sick and couldn’t come on the trip with our grandparents but then they weren’t where I left them and I don’t know where I am.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Ferris murmured, tears welling in her own eyes in the face of the child’s misery. Wrapping her arms around the little girl, she hugged the child, “How about I stay with you while my husband goes in search of your grandparents?”

When the little moppet nodded, Ferris looked up at Armand with pleading eyes. She should have known he would have been just as affected by the lost little girl. With a quick nod, he moved through the crowd, in search of frantic grandparents. It shouldn’t take him too long because he had those gargoyle ways.

Returning her attention to the little girl, feeling strangely connected to the child, she grinned, “Want to know a secret?”

The girl’s eyes widened and she silently nodded her head.

Leaning closer, she whispered, “Faeries are real.”

“I know,” the child breathed earnestly, her blue eyes even larger than before. “Sometimes I think I can see them out of the corner of my eye but when I look they aren’t there.”

Putting her head against the girl’s so they were cheek to cheek and facing the same direction, Ferris scanned the crowd until she found what she was looking for. Pointing out the lavender skinned sprite, she murmured, “They like to hide in plain sight.”

“I see him,” the child whispered in awe. “He’s not alone, is he?”

“He’s not,” Ferris confirmed, watching the small group of sprites dancing in the Irish garden display. “If you look, you can see so much more.”

Silently, the two of them looked around the park, pointing out the various creatures that danced beneath the sun, invisible to most of the humans surrounding them. As they waited for Armand to return, they talked softly and giggled about the little pixies who were now putting on a show for the little human who could see them.

“They’re amazing,” the child breathed.

Ferris kissed the smooth, plump cheek and sighed, “I hope you never lose the ability to see the magic in the world.”

“Never,” the child agreed with solemnity.

“Melanie!” a frantic voice cried out and a moment later the dark haired moppet was swept up into a pair of loving arms.

Ferris’s jaw dropped open as she slowly came to her feet, looking at the familiar image of her great-grandparents whom she had seen in pictures. Glancing down, she saw her uncle as a small boy, his blue eyes just as large in his face as he stared at her arm, at Fray. It took her a moment to realize that Armand was standing with them. It wasn’t until he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side that she even knew he was there.