Page 48 of Dragon's Honor

She glanced up at him as he pulled her into his arms. He could feel her trembling body. “No. I don’t think so.”

Without a word, Ash scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to the bed. “Would you please just relax? Nothing is going to happen to you.”

Finley studied him for a while. “What exactly is going on?”

Ash shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know anymore. I don’t know why there was a vampire at that warehouse…”

“A vampire?!”

Finley sat up and crossed her legs, pulling the robe to cover her core and her breasts as she did. Ash couldn’t help but watch her carefully. He was growing addicted to just watching her move. The way she flipped her hair off her shoulder. The way she talked with her hands. Her eyes would be the death of him. She was so expressive. Her heart shined through her eyes. He disliked the annoyance that beamed through them when she was looking at him.

Ash sighed. “Maybe I should start from the beginning.”

10

Heating Up

“Okay, start at the beginning.”

“I am a dragon shifter. I am the prince, and now king apparent of the Tourmaline Clan. My parents were murdered a few months ago, along with many of my clan. The person in charge of that attack was Tristian. He is the king of the Opal Clan. He’s a tyrant. He’s made a drug called Dragon Fire, though aside from burning humans from the inside out and incapacitating dragons into a state of insanity, I don’t know what the drug was created for. It’s not as though those results aren’t effective, but not really world dominating. I’m trying to learn everything I can so I can put a stop to him and all his followers.”

Finley interrupted. “I know all that.”

Ash’s lips quirked into a half-smirk. “The man, Kristoff, wasn’t a dragon, let alone a shifter. He was a vampire.”

Finley shifted in her seat.

Vampires were real too.

A flash of her memory in a dark alley with a man with fangs came to the surface.

She shivered.

The world seemed to get bigger and smaller all at the same time. How did no one know this? She felt like she should be terrified, but she wanted to know more. She didn’t feel unsafe with Ash. She felt the exact opposite. There was something about the way he cared after her even when they were fighting.

The kiss still burned in her brain and the way he looked at her when he saw her topless just a few minutes ago, there was definitely something brewing between the two of them, but she couldn’t let herself get caught up in it. Especially with the idea that the hunk of rock on his wrist had claimed her as some sort of mate for the dragon.

Wait. It wasn’t on his wrist anymore. It was back on hers. When did that happen?

“Finley, until I can figure out how to protect you without being by your side, I need you not to run away from me. Not right now. Your life is invaluable, and I need you to let me protect you for right now.” There was an edge to his voice like he was begging more than demanding.

“Ash, this isn’t fair. I’ve managed to keep myself alive this long.”

“Not in the middle of my world.”

Finley’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, in the middle of your world. If you think a dragon figure in the middle of a storm from a picture I took is what sent me on this journey, they you’re not very bright. It may have been what made me so relentless, but it was nothing compared to when I was a kid. I was attacked… by something. I still don’t know how I survived.”

Ash blinked at her. “What?”

“I was a stupid kid. I ran away from my mom in a storm because we were fighting, and I was mad. I wanted to hurt her. Instead, I just ended up being cornered by this man. I remember his cold eyes and fangs. But not much else.” She shivered at the memory.

“Fangs? If you had to give it a name, what would you name it.”

“I don’t know. It was dark and stormy…such a cliché, but it was difficult to see anything. I got away or he let me go. I found my mom. I tried to tell everyone what I saw, but no one believed me. The therapist I saw told me I made it all up because of the trauma of whatever actually happened to me. They thought maybe I’d been molested or something.”

Ash didn’t say anything, but she could see the sorrow in his eyes. He wanted to eradicate it.

“How is showing you everything going to make any of that better? Won’t it just make you more scared?”

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