Page 52 of Dragon Exposed

I didn’t really want to uproot my life, and I highly doubted Levi did either. Not with everything his sister had told me, and not with everything I’d seen from the man himself.

He’d want to deal with this himself. I just needed to do everything I could to convince him I needed to be by his side when he did it. Even if it meant getting him to claim me, so that I could fly by his side.

“We can’t run.” He frowned, scooping me up in such a fluid, easy motion, it caught me off guard and made me gasp. “But we can’t be conspicuous when we head back toward cities. I think we need to drive.”

I still didn’t know where exactly we were, or how far off we were from somewhere like New York or Philly, but I could only imagine he didn’t have a car that would be nearly as fast as his wings.

Still, the idea of flying into a city that thought dragons were nothing more than fire breathing monsters was leaps and bounds worse than the thought of being in a car with Levi for hours or even days.

“Okay. We can come up with a plan as we drive.”

He shook his head. “You, little mate, need your rest. We can talk in the morning.”

Fuck that. “I’m not leaving you to do all the driving alone. If you really want me as your mate, if you really plan on keeping me for yourself, then you have to start treating me like I’m as strong, as capable as the other women who were in the tent tonight. I might not be a dragon yet, but if you piss me off, you’ll see how close to breathing fire I can get.”

Levi just smirked. “Okay. I won’t deny that your company would soothe me and my dragon both.” He carried me into the house, down into the garage, and set me down. “Pick our ride.”

Holy shit. I was really starting to think the whole “dragons hoard treasure” stereotype was more than accurate. There were at least a dozen cars under the house, ranging from non-descript sedans to what appeared to be an Italian racing car, like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.

“Do I even dare to ask how wealthy you are?” I stared at the cars, trying to figure out which one would be the most effective to get us into the city unseen. “How do you afford all this? How many houses do you own?”

“I personally only have this one and my condo in Florida. The family has spread out across the country, and we have cabins and more remote housing in several states, to ensure that there’s always a safe place we can land or rest. I imagine these houses will become more and more important now, assuming Grey hasn’t been tracking the money.” Levi said it so matter-of-factly, it was hard not to just accept it.

I had no doubt that later, though, I was going to have some serious questions about their wealth, about just how ingratiated they’d already become in our world. “I think we should take that one.” I pointed at a hybrid SUV in black. It looked luxurious enough that it would blend in if we ended up in the nice parts of New York, but not so flashy that someone would clock us and be able to track us.

“Good choice.” He grinned. “The back seats fold completely flat in case we need to pull over and lay down for a while.”

The way he said it, I didn’t think he was referring to a need for sleep.

“Let’s go then. I imagine we’ve got a hell of a drive ahead of us.”

20

Road Trip

LEVI

It didn’t take long on the dark, winding roads, for Izobelle’s eyelids to start to droop.

As soon as she was asleep, I was tempted to spin the wheel completely around, head in the opposite direction. Really, any direction that wouldn’t lead us right back into the vampires’ plans.

It wasn’t a bad idea to hide right under their noses, to go back to the city. Hell, part of me thought she was dead on in thinking we should’ve headed for Philadelphia, to do what we could for the burning city.

But if Grey had created more of those monsters, more humans who could breathe fire as easily as dragons could, fire that could hurt dragons, I didn’t want to be anywhere near them. I didn’t want to put Izobelle in their crosshairs. She was in enough danger, just being known as a dragon’s mate.

As far as I could tell, Grey hadn’t outed her to the media, hadn’t posted her as a dragon like he had with some of the others.

Not all of the human mates had been identified, which I took as a good sign. At least for now, their only threat was other dragons, unless humans caught sight of them shifting.

Not all the women were that lucky though.

And Izobelle was a target anyway, since I’d made the rash decision to swoop down and scoop her out of the square before flying off. Her face and her name had been splashed across the news outlets as much as mine had. At least only some of them were speculating that she was involved in it.

I hated how much shit was raining down around us all. I hated that I couldn’t be like the Carmine brothers, or Ash and Henrik, with time to get to know my mate, time to properly claim her. I hated that I still wasn’t even sure if she’d accept my bite.

I would’ve had to be blind to miss how closely she eyed all the heartstones that were on display. There was no way she’d have missed them lighting up with contact between mates.

Did she yearn to wear mine, as badly as my dragon demanded I hunt it down to present it to her? Or would she really be okay without it, without knowing for sure that she was mine?

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