Page 21 of Lachlan

So, she told them everything that had happened from the moment she acquired the journals. The long hours of translating them. Her excitement when that one journal had revealed how Sister Agnes had been left as a sacrifice for the dragons by the elders in her village. But instead of eating her, the dragons had shifted into fierce warriors before reverting back to dragons and flying her to the convent where she had spent the rest of her life.

“She became a nun,” Ranulf murmured.

“She was the abbess for many years,” Belle confirmed. “I have to admit that initially I even suspected that the three of you, because you have the surname of Drake—which, incidentally, means dragon in several old languages—of possibly having been related to Sister Agnes’s three dragon warriors,” she concluded wryly. “I can only apologize for that, with the claim that I think the cold and the snow must have given me brain freeze,” she added with a soft and self-derisive laugh.

A laugh none of the Drake brothers echoed.

Instead, they were all looking at her with varying degrees of intensity.

A nerve pulsed in Ranulf’s cheek.

Hunter’s jaw was clenched.

Lachlan continued to stare at her through narrowed lids.

But there wasn’t a hint of humor amongst them.

Her laugh was nervous this time. “There’s really no need for you all to look so worried. I might be thought slightly eccentric for believing in dragons, but I’m not about to become violent if you challenge me on it.” Any violent tendencies she felt were currently aimed directly at Ben for when she next saw him!

Hunter turned toward Lachlan. “You’ll never have a more perfect time.”

He winced. “Yes, but?—”

“Hunter is right,” Ranulf said gruffly.

“Show her something to convince her if you can’t say it,” Hunter encouraged.

Belle turned to look at him. “Show me what?”

“That we aren’t related to the dragon warriors Sister Agnes claims to have seen,” Lachlan rumbled.

“Of course you aren’t.” She chuckled. “I told you, my thoughts have been all over the place, more so than usual, since coming to Scotland.”

“Belle, we aren’t related to them,” Lachlan repeated with a lift of his strong chin. “Because wearethem.”

“Now that hurt.” She frowned at each of them in turn. “I haven’t known the three of you for very long, but even so, I chose to confide in you about the contents of Sister Agnes’s journal. There really isn’t any need to mock me because I believe dragons once existed.”

“We aren’t mocking you, Belle,” Lachlan insisted.

“Well, you certainly aren’t being kind,” she accused.

“Show hernow, Lachlan,” Hunter bit out.

“Show me wh…” Belle’s words tailed off, her eyes widening, mouth agape, as Lachlan’s features began to change.

His forehead deepened, silver hair turning into a mane that ran from the Widow’s Peak on his brow and down the center of his neck and back. Scales replaced the flesh of his face, his eyes gleaming a deep silver, his nose becoming flatter and wider above a slightly open jaw that revealed two rows of long and pointed teeth.

To all intents and purposes, Lachlan Drake’s head had shifted into that of a savagely beautiful silver dragon!

Belle stared at him wordlessly for several long seconds before black shadows started to appear at the edges of her vision.

Shadows that deepened and grew darker still until she felt herself falling, and everything turned completely black.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Not your finest hour, brother,” Hunter drawled as he went ahead of Lachlan up the stairs to where their rooms were situated.

Lachlan carried an unconscious Belle in his arms. His face had shifted back to normal, but he retained his powerful dragon strength in his human form. Not that Belle was heavy to carry, because she certainly wasn’t. Lachlan could feel his dragon’s restlessness at realizing how little she weighed.

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