Page 23 of Dragon Bodyguard
This was where he belonged.
She didn’t.
There was no future to be had with her.
So whatever old feelings she was breathing new life into, he had to bury them. And fast. He had to look at her as no more than part of the job.
He slipped into the driver’s seat of one of the two Range Rovers and turned the key. The cars were always on stand-by. They were the most fit for terrain exploration and driving around the parameter of the property was all about exploring rough terrain.
Why had he kissed her? Why hadn’t he been able to control that impulse? Why had her closeness been all it took for his convictions to crumble like they were sandcastles drying out in the sun?
Why was he getting the feeling that their breakup had been orchestrated by others and had been, at the end of the day, out of their hands?
Should it even matter?
He got the car moving down the driveway toward the gate where he would turn right. He would follow the stone wall circling the property, first along the road and then he’d make another right and turn onto the dirt road taking him into the forest. It would take him nearly thirty minutes to get to the midway point where he’d meet up with Louis and the men he’d brought.
Plenty of time to argue with himself about how whatever he felt for her was a lost cause waiting to happen. Plenty of time to tell himself there was absolutely nothing good to be had from pursuing her. Plenty of time to deny to himself exactly how much he wanted to test her barriers, push against her family ties, see if they would snap.
Was he willing to risk everything he’d built for himself?
He honestly didn’t know. And it worried him. Because she’d already made him be impulsive in ways he never was. Perhaps they were another accident just waiting to happen.
Chapter 8 - Kristina
She’d almost asked him to stay. As aggravating as it was, she’d felt safe with him nearby. Now that he was gone, it was like a chill kept slipping up her spine. She’d almost been shot. She could have died. If those men had taken her… What would that have meant? She might have been assaulted in more terrible ways than by a bullet lodging itself in her.
Who had ordered her to be taken?
She slipped further into the bath, the heat of the water working wonders for her nerves. She’d never wished she’d been born with powers more fervently than she had when she faced her attackers. If she could have matched them in that way, she wondered if they’d be so quick to write her off.They must know I’m a shiftless; surely that had been part of their brief. There was nothing to worry about with her, no precautions to be implemented before snatching her. As long as the men could get their disgusting little hands on her, she was completely helpless.
She made a noise at the back of the throat. A low growl, though her inner dragon didn’t make it rumble. Her inner dragon had been dormant her entire life. It was there, she knew it was, because she hadn’t been born of humans, but she couldn’t reach it. Why couldn’t she connect with it? Why had it stayed silent for over a century? What was it that it needed from her to wake the hell up already?
Not even when she was in mortal peril did it shake its head and raise it to have a peek at what was going on, see if there was anything it could do for her. What about whatsheneeded?
All her life she’d been made to understand that she was less than and all her life she’d believed it. Except for when she’d spent time with Misha. He had been the only dragon who ever treated her with any form of respect. Apart from Aleksander, but even Aleksander, back when they were much younger, could fall back on teasing her in ways that he might not realise were cruel, and that shook her trust in him. He didn’t mean to make her feel like he thought he was better than her, but at times he’d joined his siblings in tormenting her far beyond what she had felt okay with.
Had she ever felt okay with any of the teasing?
Hadn’t it all really been no more than common bullying? It had never been done on her terms. She had never felt included or as if she could take it on the chin. More than once, their name-calling and exclusion had made her feel smaller than a speck of dirt on the floor. And not much better than one either.
Now she dressed up in designer clothes and fancy shoes, she owned expensive bags and wore stupid hats with sunglasses that were too big for her face, and she still didn’t feel that she was much better than that speck of dirt on the floor. She’d tried to make herself all shiny for them because, perhaps if she at least put up a polished front, they’d be amused by reflecting themselves in her shiny surface, but the truth was that she felt like shit most of the time.
And she couldn’t even feel angry about it. Years of wear and tear had left her feeling nothing more than numb.
That numbness…
The same she’d felt after the attack. Like a shock to her system that had left her reeling. God, what had she said to Misha? She’d told him she was wrong to let go. She’d told him she’d missed him.
She closed her eyes.
Good Lord.
A noise from outside the door made her eyes jerk to it, breath held involuntarily as she stared at the door handle.
Her heart slowed into a heavy drum beat against her ribs.
She waited.
