Radek Read online

  He offered her his hand. “I mentioned I am a snow dragon, did I not? Come, see for yourself.” He paused, then added. “And will you please tell me your name?”

  She looked at him and then the ice house and back to him again. Nothing made sense at the moment, which left her with a choice. She could either freak out, run into the woods and probably get lost then attacked by some rabid woodland creature, or she could give in and embrace the madness. It wasn’t a difficult choice. She leaned forward and took his hand, doing her best to ignore the fact even that simple contact made her breath catch in her throat. “I’m Piper.”

  His smile widened as he got to his feet without letting go of her hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Piper.” The moment he was standing, he helped her up and then shifted his grip so he could continue to hold her hand.

  When she looked down at their hands, he uttered a low, sensual chuckle that made her tingle in some interesting places. “I said I wouldn’t touch you without your consent. You indicated I could hold your hand, so I intend to keep doing so.”

  “My sister warned me about guys like you.”

  “I doubt that. There’s no one else like me around for lightyears.”

  That charming smile returned, and her heart did a double-beat, followed by a backflip. Before she knew it, she was moving closer, until they were almost touching. “I don’t understand any of this. Not you, or how we got here, or why…” she trailed off as she raised a hand, stopping just before her fingers reached his cheek.

  “Do you wish to touch me?” he asked.

  She blushed and nodded once, feeling foolish. She didn’t know him at all, but her body didn’t care. She wanted to connect with him. God, she wanted to do so much more than connect. She wanted to climb him and rub herself all over him like she was a cat and he was catnip.

  “What you’re feeling is called the rux. I feel it, too,” he ran his thumb across the back of her hand. “You may touch me, sadina. I would welcome it.”

  She caressed his cheek for a brief moment but withdrew before she was tempted to do more. “Why is it every time you tell me something, it leads to more questions?”

  “Because you are as bright as you are beautiful, Piper of Earth. Now, will you come with me? There are things I need to tell you, and questions you need answered.”

  “Is one of those things going to be how you managed to be naked one second and dressed the next?” she asked as he led her toward the structure he claimed to have created. She still wasn’t ready to believe him about that.

  “You saw that?” he asked.

  “Uh huh. Skyclad is a good look for you.”

  “I’m not familiar with that term. It wasn’t part of my language upload.”

  “It means wearing nothing but air. Bare-assed naked.” She almost commented that it was a very fine ass, too. “Now, will you please tell me what happened at the Gathering?” It was only a short walk to the strange building, and the closer she got, the more out of place it looked. She’d thought maybe it was a tourist attraction or an art installation, but now she could see it was exactly what he said it was. A house carved from ice in the middle of nowhere, at the height of summer.

  Radek continued talking as they walked toward the impossible structure. “There was an attack. Multiple explosions detonated in a short period of time. I saw my friends to safety, then went looking for you.”

  “Why would you go looking for me? We’re strangers.”

  They reached the door, and he pushed it open, giving her only a moment to admire the elaborately detailed dragon carved into the center of it. “I went after you, Piper of Earth, because I had to. You are my sadina, my chosen mate.”

  Chapter Three

  “I’m your what?” she demanded, stopping dead in her tracks.

  “Mate. The one chosen by the Gods to stand at my side for the rest of our lives. In my language, you are my sadina.”

  Folding her arms across her chest she shot back, “I have a word for you in my language, too: bonkers.”

  He cocked his head and looked at her like a confused but adorable puppy. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I think you’re crazy. If we were mates, I’d know it, wouldn’t I? There’d be a spark or something, right?”

  “I’m a Romaki Snow Dragon, not a Pyrosian. We don’t do fire or sparks, and I am not mentally unbalanced!” He sounded so indignant she almost giggled.

  “Fine. You’re a Romaki.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word dragon. It was just too much weirdness, even for her. “What the hell makes you think I’m your mate? Is it the hair? I hate to break it to you, but it’s dyed. I’m really a brunette.”

  “It is not your hair, or your beauty, or your temper. All of those things make you attractive to me, but it’s not why I know you are mine.” He touched his chest. “My soul recognized yours the moment I entered the stadium today. My dragon understood it before I did because I never imagined I would find you here, so far from home.”

  “And does this dragon speak to you a lot?” She was starting to wonder if her sexy alien saviour really was mentally unbalanced.

  He grinned. “At times. He is part of me, but not all of me, if that makes sense. He is my wild side and the source of my magic.”

  She held up her hand. “I’ve got information overload. Let’s set aside the whole ‘my magic dragon talks to me’ thing for now and get back to my earlier question. You seem convinced I’m your mate. If that’s so, shouldn’t I know it, too?”

  “Your soul knows it is so. That’s what the rux is.” He moved to face her, then gestured between them. “What we’re feeling is the physical confirmation of our destiny.”

  “Lust isn’t destiny.” She’d been slow to learn that lesson, but after repeated heartbreak, she’d figured it out.

  “This is not lust.” He held his hand out. It was shaking slightly. “I crave your touch. I need to know what you taste like, how your hair will feel when I run my hands through it. This is the rux, and soon it will consume us both.”

  A rush of raw need flooded her senses, accompanied by the thought that it had been a long time since she’d been consumed, which was completely beside the point right now. She fought down a sudden urge to step into his arms and kiss him until they were both breathless, took a deep breath and said, “You’re gorgeous and all, but I’m pretty sure I can resist the urge to jump into bed with you until we know each other better. Hell, you haven’t even told me how I got here or why my clothes are torn and bloody.”

  * * *

  “You were injured when I found you. A large chunk of concrete had crushed your legs and you were unconscious.” His voice lowered as he described how he’d found her and there was a note of pain in his tone. “I did what I had to do. I healed you, then shifted forms and flew you somewhere we wouldn’t be disturbed.”

  Her head spun. “You flew me here? How? And how did you heal me? And for that matter, if you can heal, why didn’t you stay and help? My sister and her baby were there waiting for her match, and I was sitting with a friend! Why did you abandon everyone else?”

  He frowned. “I did not abandon anyone. There is nothing I could have done to heal anyone but you. If you weren’t my mate, it wouldn’t have worked. If I hadn’t been there today, you would have died. In fact, I think you did die for a moment. You stopped breathing for so long I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I stopped breathing?”

  “You did. Long enough for me to believe I’d finally found my mate only to lose you before we even got to speak.”

  She believed him. It didn’t seem possible, but either he was the best actor in the galaxy, or he truly thought she had died. “And you couldn’t have saved anyone else? Just me?”

  “Only you,” he confirmed. “I am sorry about your family and friend. I’m sure you are worried about them. If it’s any help, I didn’t see any explosions go off near the human females waiting for their matches. Whoever did this set most of the explosive devices where th
ey would harm the Pyrosians, not humans.”

  She glanced down at her ruined clothes. “Most, but not all. And if I was hit, then Haley must have been too.” A fragment of memory flitted through her mind, and she stopped talking to try and bring it into focus. They’d been running up the stairs. Haley was finally moving faster now she’d kicked off her shoes. They were almost to an exit level. She’d turned around to check on Haley and then – nothing. “I don’t remember what happened to her. You need to take me back. They might be hurt!”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Of course you can. You got us here, you can take me back.” Even as she said it, part of her protested the idea of leaving. She needed to stay here with Radek, didn’t she?

  “It wouldn’t be safe. I told you my dragon represents the wild, more primal side of my nature. What do you think will happen if I fly you back into the city while we are affected by the rux? Do you see that ending well for anyone?”

  He really seemed convinced he was a damned dragon. She wanted to keep dismissing the idea, but that was getting difficult to do, considering she was standing in a building carved from ice in the middle of a forest, covered in blood but without a scratch on her. “Look, I’m having trouble with this whole dragon thing. Can you prove it to me? I think I’m going to need to see it to believe it.”

  He gestured around them. “Not in here. I just built this, I’d rather not flatten it before you even look around.”

  “You’re that big?” She knew she’d made a mistake the second the words left her lips.

  He gave her an arrogant, toe-curlingly sexy smile. “You’ve seen me, what was the word, skyclad? You know the answer to that already, sadina.”

  Oh god. She did, and now her brain was happily replaying that memory on a loop, which was making it hard to think about anything else. “Outside. You go outside and tell me when you’re ready for your big reveal. No! I mean call me when you’re ready to show me your dragon. I mean… dammit, you know what I mean. I’ll look around the house that magic built. Call me when you’ve unleashed the beast.”

  He was laughing as he bowed to her. “As my mate wishes. I will call you when I’m ready.”

  She uttered a frustrated squawk and waved him off, then started fanning her overheated cheeks. “I cannot believe I said those things. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “The rux is taking hold. We don’t have much time left,” he replied from somewhere outside.

  “Hot, smart, charming, and he’s got the hearing of a bionic bat. Great.”

  Gifted with a few minutes of solitude, she tried to distract her whirling mind by looking around while finger-combing out the worst of the knots in her hair. The first thing she did was walk over to one of the walls and press her hand to it. It looked and felt like a solid block of ice. It was translucent, cool, and slippery smooth, but the air around it wasn’t chilled at all. Her fascination grew as she turned to explore. The roof was vaulted, and the inside was decorated with carvings, mostly decorative, swirling patterns, but she saw the same dragon motif she’d seen on the door repeated in a few other places.

  The living space was a wide-open design with a fireplace as the focal point. Sure, the flames were blue, it gave off little heat, and there was no fuel source she could see, but it was still some kind of fire. “He’ll probably tell me it’s magical, too,” she muttered as she continued looking around. The furniture appeared to be made of the same stuff as the walls. Simple, almost blocky, designs covered in thick, sumptuous fabrics and cushions in various shades of silver, blue, and white. There was a lounge and chairs near the fire, and beyond that was a massive bed piled high with blankets and pillows.

  One look at the bed and her imagination went into overdrive. If she stayed, this is where they’d sleep. Both of them, together. Skin to skin. Limbs tangled, asleep in each other’s arms... God, she wanted that so badly she could taste it. She held out her hand and discovered it was shaking just like Radek’s had. She spun around and started for the door before she even knew what she was doing.

  “Need,” the word was barely a whisper in the back of her mind, and it accompanied another wild surge of lust.

  “Yeah, I need to get a grip.”

  She hadn’t reached the door when there was an earth-rumbling roar from outside. Either there was a mutant bear out there, or Radek wasn’t crazy after all.

  She ran the last few steps and burst through the door, then stopped dead as she spotted a massive, blue and silver creature standing in the middle of the clearing. “Holy shit!”

  Radek was huge, and he was most definitely a dragon, wings, tail, teeth, and all. He was covered in iridescent blue scales that shimmered in the sunlight. The only part of him that hadn’t changed were his eyes, still the same familiar silver. With a low rumble that sounded suspiciously like laughter, he sat up straighter and spread his wings, showing off for her.

  Speechless, Piper could only stare in wonder. He was breathtaking. No picture or statue could compare to the creature before her. Only, he wasn’t a creature. This was Radek. Which meant it was all real. Magic. Dragons. Shapeshifters. She’d fallen into a fairy tale.

  She raised a hand and took a step towards him, then stopped. Common sense dictated you didn’t just walk up to a dragon and pet it like a puppy, but her fingers itched with the need to touch him.

  Another step. “It’s still you, right? You’re okay with me touching you when you’re like, uh, this?”

  In response, Radek furled his wings and carefully lowered himself to the ground. Once he was settled, he let his head drop onto the grass a few feet in front of her and gave a brief rumble.

  “I’m taking that as a yes.” She walked up to the side of his head and gently placed her hand on him. She expected the scales to feel cold and hard and was surprised when the warm, smooth surface gave slightly under her fingers. “So, I guess I owe you an apology for calling you bonkers, earlier. But can you blame me? Dragons are supposed to be mythical. How was I supposed to know they were actually aliens from another planet?”

  He uttered another low rumble, and this time she was certain it was laughter. “Quit that. It isn’t nice to laugh at your mate on your first date.”

  Two seconds later she wasn’t petting a dragon anymore. Instead, she was looking down at a very naked Radek lying on the grass at her feet.

  “Say that again,” he demanded as he bounced to his feet.

  “You forgot your clothes,” she pointed out as she fought, and failed, to stop staring at him. He was a gorgeous dragon, but dear god, he was panty-melting sexy as a man. Broad shoulders that tapered down to a trim waist and six-pack abs the likes of which she’d only seen on the cover of romance novels and fitness magazines. Her gaze drifted lower, and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from moaning aloud as she got a good look at his cock. He was hung like a…well, like a dragon, and there were subtle ridges down the length of his shaft that almost made her laugh out loud as the words ‘ribbed for her pleasure,’ sprang to mind.

  He walked right up to her, then swept her into his arms, pressing her against his hard, naked body. “Say it again, Piper.”

  “Say what?” she asked. She’d never been this turned on in her life, and it was making it impossible to think of anything but what she wanted to do to him, and what she needed him to do to her.

  “You called yourself my mate.” He cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her head, to stare into her eyes. “Tell me who you belong to, sadina, and I’ll give you what you need.”

  One look in his silver eyes and she knew the truth, even if she didn’t understand how it was possible. A wave of lust slammed into her, so powerful it made her sway in his arms. “I belong to you, Radek. And you belong to me.”

  Radek wanted to throw back his head and roar in triumph. She had consented. More than that, she had claimed him as her own. He bowed his head and slanted a hard kiss across her mouth. He’d been waiting for this moment since she had first woken, an
d her response was all he could have hoped for. She rose on her toes to kiss him back, her arms twining around his neck as she parted her lips and let him taste her properly.

  As tempted as he was to lay her down and take her right here in the meadow, he was determined to do better. “Hold onto me.”

  She moved back enough to grin at him. “I thought I was already doing that.”

  “You are intoxicating,” he said as he cupped his hands under her ass and lifted her into the air.

  “And you’re a dragon.” She was giggling as she wrapped her legs around his hips. “Why do I feel like I’m drunk?”

  “In a way, you are.” He stopped to kiss her again, letting his tongue savour the depths of her mouth. She tasted sweeter than sun-ripened veli berries, his favourite dessert. His curiosity was piqued when he discovered her tongue was pierced. He’d read about this practice in his research about humans, along with numerous references to its benefits. His mate was full of surprises.

  Kissing Piper was a delectable torment. He wanted to continue, but he needed to do more than kiss her, he needed to explore every inch of her body and learn all the ways he could give her pleasure. Finally, he tore his mouth from hers and started back toward the home he had conjured for them.

  “The rux is doing this? You Romaki don’t mess around with your mating rituals, do you? I can’t keep a thought in my head. I know I should be worried about my family, but I’m not. It’s like I’m not in control of my brain right now. I don’t like it.”

  “This feeling will pass, but not quickly.” He did a quick bit of math. “It will be at its peak for three or four of your planetary rotations, though the effects will take much longer to fade completely.”

  “That long? Everyone is going to be worried about me.”

  He knew how she felt. No one knew where he was, and he had no way to let them know. His communicator hadn’t survived the explosion that had destroyed his clothes, and he was too deep into the rux to leave Piper for more than a few minutes. His friends would be worried, but there was nothing he could do, and it was safer for everyone if they weren’t found until the mating fever passed. He hadn’t even told Piper the truth about how he’d healed her, yet. She wasn’t likely to react well to the news that to save her life, he’d had to turn her into a dragon. “I have no way to contact anyone, or I would have already done so.”