A Dragon's Dream of Love (Song of the Sídhí Series #2) (4 page)

Derek snapped his mouth shut, trying to
swallow his growl, but it still rumbled from his chest. “Don’t worry, I’m over
it. Why should I bother with you when I’ve already met a dozen different girls
around camp? Notice given: I am one hundred percent – not – interested in you,”
he said, emphatically throwing her own words back in her face.

“Okay,” Leah said with a grin.

Growling, he stood, planning to make a
grand exist and storm off, but his body had other plans. He glanced into Leah's
laughing eyes before she turned her undivided attention to her pop. The synth
crystal, lacing the blood in his body, shuddered with a violent reaction.

Inhuman music picked that exact moment
to boil through his blood, exploding in an eerie symphony of sound that no one
else heard. His soul shook as the synth crystal roared through his head,
streaking its way around his backbone and into the tips of his toes. He
vibrated with the force of his synth crystal naming Leah as his lifeMate.

His legs turned liquid and he dropped
in his chair.

Derek instinctively knew Leah’s synth
crystal hadn’t sung for him, not yet anyway; instinct gave Sídhí many unique
abilities, including knowing whether or not the synth music sang in their
lifeMate’s body. The singing in her body was inevitable, he knew it would
happen. Sídhí had a single lifeMate. For better or worse, she was his lifeMate.

He grabbed his cup with trembling
fingers, blindly staring into the watered-down liquid, coming to terms with the
otherworldly music that slowly disappeared from his ringing head.

Already, he felt his body yearning to
touch hers, needing it as desperately as a man in a desert needed water. He
didn’t fight it; he wanted her, now, more than ever. He knew the minute he
looked at her, he would be completely under the spell of the synth crystal,
completely under her spell.

That’s simply the way it worked. The
synth in a person's blood pulled two perfect people together for a multitude of
reasons. The primary reason – the most important reason – was mental stability.
Most Sídhí lived thousands of years. The joining between lifeMates – the
permanent lifeBond created – gave both immortals a solid, mental base.

In less than a split second his life
literally turned upside down. He felt bombarded. His hand fisted in his lap,
trembling with the need to touch her. The moment the synth sang, it kicked off
a chemical reaction in his blood, initiating a dozen physical and mental
responses within him. His attraction toward her increased a thousand fold. He
felt a desperate desire to please her and make her happy, and an overwhelming
need to wrap her in a cocoon of safety.

The chemical stimulated an unswerving
and instantaneous love for her. How the Ancient Ones created a substance that
triggered all those emotional responses and more, he didn't know. He really
didn't care. Sídhí lived for their lifeMate. It was a fact of life.

He glanced toward his sister and
Brianna, but no one seemed to notice anything wrong with him; he had no outward
signs, except for his slightly dazed look and racing heart.

Beth and Brianna said goodbye,
excitedly chattering with each other as they headed for their cabin.

Derek took a deep drink of pop; his
straw sucked air, shattering the stillness hovering over the table. He tried
getting a grip on his racing heart, but Leah’s nearness didn’t help. Her scent
enveloped him, teasing him until he throbbed with yearning.

“I guess, I’ll head toward the cabin as
well,” Leah said, reaching for her plate.

It was now or never, Derek steeled his
nerve and looked at her. His raging emotions slammed through him with the force
of a tsunami. Love and desire exploded through every fiber of his being. He
struggled, trying to draw a breath of air, watching her hips sway as she walked
toward the trash can, dumping her empty plate. Swallowing a lump in his throat,
he frantically tried figuring out a way to stay near her… without her pitching
a fit. He had told her – in no uncertain terms – he was not interested in her,
not in the slightest. The thought of her leaving without him made him frantic.

He couldn’t tell her about his synth
singing; it was forbidden. Even within the Dhark Valley, it was forbidden and
with darn good reason.

You never told a lifeMate your synth
sung if theirs had not. Every child grew-up hearing horror stories of what
happened to people who broke that Golden Rule. One of the worst stories he ever
heard, originated from Sídhí, just after people became infected with synth
crystal.

The story related the horror of a
doomed lifeMate couple. The words, handed down through the generations, echoed
in his head as he remembered the details: It was a few years after the Ancients
infected the population of Sídhí with synth crystal and people didn't know what
the synth was capable of. Come to find out, it was capable of a lot, including
singing in the blood of a vampire General by the name, Kirkland. His synth
crystal sang for Princess Serena, a prisoner and a fae; she was one of the last
survivors of the powerful race. He opened the cage that held her, freeing her
on the spot. He told her his synth sang for her. She didn’t believe him. She
yanked his sword from his scabbard and swung. At the exact moment she beheaded
him, her synth sang for him.

Derek shuddered; he had already royally
screwed up with Leah. He wasn’t going to make matters worse by telling her his
synth had sung for her. All he could do now was try and fix the mess he was in
without making it worse. Damage control didn’t come close to encompassing his
current needs.

~ ~ ~

Leah turned and silently groaned; Derek
kept watching her. Maybe if she hadn’t emphatically rebuffed his advances, he
wouldn’t see her as a challenge.

He started talking before she reached
the table. She had a really bad feeling he was about to make her summer
miserable.

“I’ve got a suggestion,” Derek said.

“No,” Leah said, without even hearing
it, knowing it would sound good, but would turn-out bad.

“You haven’t even heard it yet,” he
argued, grabbing the back of her vest, he tugged her into her chair.

Sighing, in an exasperated huff, she
said, “Okay, out with it. What’s your suggestion?” She put her hand over her
heart. “I’m waiting with baited breath to hear that silver tongue of yours.”

“You do sarcasm so well,” he said with
a grin.

Leah couldn’t help it, she chuckled. If
he wasn’t such a good-looking wretch, she might actually come to like him.

“First, we declare a truce,” he said,
sighing at her expression of disbelief. “I can’t help my arrogance – though, I
will try – and you can’t help living in a Dhark Valley.” Holding up his hand,
he stopped her comment. “Second, I promise, I won’t try to get you in my bed.”

He paused at her skeptical snort, but
kept going by saying, “Third, I’d rather have you as a friend that I can trust
than not at all. I have a feeling with people like Mort around we’ll need each
other.”

“That’s true enough,” Leah said, trying
to decide if he had a hidden agenda. His suggestion had merit.

He watched her with those eerie golden
eyes of his. She was sure he had an ulterior motive, but she really did like
him. That is, when he wasn’t trying to lay on the charm. For whatever odd
reason, they clicked. She frowned at the direction her thoughts had taken and
firmly amended her momentary insanity. They clicked as friends – absolutely –
nothing more.

“All right, I agree,” Leah said,
crossing her arms she hid her full breasts, but his eyes never left her face
which was a surprise since most guys' attention centered on a girl's chest, not
her face.

“Great, come on, let’s see if the
commissary has any sunscreen and I’ll introduce you to chocolate,” Derek said
eagerly, motioning for her to leave her bags under the table.

The commissary was large, filled with
shelves full of an odd assortment of everything imaginable; the wide variety
included clothing, candy, games, assorted swim toys, even the latest movies.
She assumed from the large selection, each cabin must have a TV and movie
player.

“Hello, dears, I’m Claire.” A soft
raspy voice welcomed them.

The hair on the back of Leah's neck
rose in warning. Before turning, she slowed her racing heart, while dread built
in her gut. Behind the counter sat an elderly gray haired woman, dressed in a
colorful sundress that looked a size too small for her very plumb body. Her
sweet smile improved her pale features, looking like a roly-poly grandmother
who hugged every child within an arm's reach.

Leah grimaced, trying her best to
smile, she kept her growing unease carefully hidden. “Sorry, you startled me.”

“No problem, sweetie.” The woman's
sharp eyes contrasted with her seeming innocent appearance. Her gaze drilled
straight through Leah. “There’s no sun in here to see if your eyes are red or
black, but from your burned skin I’d say you’re an exile.”

“Yes,” she agreed hesitantly.

“Yes, well, for the next couple of
weeks, you’ll need long sleeves and sunscreen. Look over there on the next
aisle. Yes, that’s the one.” Claire frowned. “There’s still rather a lot of
squabbling going on in most of the cabins. They could care less that you exiles
can’t handle much sunlight for the first couple of weeks.”

“I can’t ever handle much sunlight,”
Leah said.

“Didn’t the dragons checking you in
tell you all the rules?”

“One of them gave me some flyers, but I
haven’t read them,” Leah said, immediately tuning the old woman out as she
nattered on about rules and regulations. She glanced toward the open door where
Derek stood surrounding by a flock of giggling young women. Less than two
minutes and he had girls trailing him, not girl, but girls as in harem. The
moment he headed toward the commissary, a group of girls from his home valley
reached the deck, swarming around him, giggling over his every word, wrapping
their arms around him, each girl demanding his attention.

Why in the world did she think a truce
would work between her and Mr. Perfect? Her thoughts simmered black and ugly as
she watched his groupies fawn over him. One good thing, the girls trailing
behind him might distract him long enough for her to get away. That’d be nice.
She'd had more than enough time to salivate over his sun-touched hair caressing
the roped muscles of his shoulders

Leah had seen enough. Turning on her
heel, she headed toward the sunscreen. She didn’t need to watch Derek further
his list of available beauties.

~ ~ ~

Derek ignored the trailing girls, but
they followed him from the deck; each of them gave him a cabin number and an
invitation. He politely refused each one, while pulling his arms from one
girl's grasp only to find his other arm latched onto. He didn't want to
accidentally hurt one of them, but their touch made him increasingly sick to
his stomach.

He bluntly informed the group he wasn’t
interested, but they didn't listen. Their offers became faster and with greater
detail of what they wanted to do to his body. The blatant sexuality of the
girls left him cold; he had no interest in anyone, except his lifeMate who was
currently shooting daggers at him.

He was fascinated with Leah's eyes. In
the sun, they turned a shocking blood red, but in the shade they mesmerized
him; one minute they appeared a soft gray color and the next moment, as her
mood changed, they shifted to a brilliant stormy purplish color like a dark,
deep amethyst, a perfect gem with a lightning storm in its center.

"Let's find a quiet corner,"
a brunette said in a husky come-hither voice. She grabbed his butt cheek,
giving it a hard squeeze.

He jumped forward like she poked him
with a hot iron. "No!"

Derek wildly glanced around the store,
looking for Leah, but she had disappeared among the heavily stocked shelves.

He groaned in frustration. The girls
would eventually get the picture. His notoriety as a playboy didn’t help
matters. He was brother to the Alpha Prime and a true royal back home. He held
the title of Grand Duke and all the land – and headaches – that went along with
the title.

His eyes followed his lifeMate down a
short aisle and he stalked forward, trying to catch up with her.

The scowl on her face as she snatched
the first bottle of sunscreen told him how irritated she was at him. She
quickly retreated to the front of the store, never once looking at him or the
brunette rubbing her boobs against his bare arm.

He tried pulling free of Boob Girl, but
she hung on like a burr stuck in a horse's tail.

The gaggle of girls giggled and
squealed behind him. He should have made it clearer to the girls of Haven
Valley that he wasn’t interested. Period.

Leah’s reaction made him grit his teeth
with rapidly growing frustration. He had always attracted girls; they swarmed
like gnats on a bad banana. Now, that he didn’t want their attention, he didn’t
know how to get rid of them.

Without any kind of plan, he abruptly
turned toward them and knocked off a huge bottle of green apple-scented
shampoo. It hit the floor with a loud thump and bounced. Thankfully, it didn't
burst.

The girls giggled shrilly and
surrounded him. How had he ever tolerated high-pitched shrieks that sounded
like a pig getting its teeth pulled-out?

At his wit's end, he lengthened his
canines and flashed his sharp teeth, growling at them with barely suppressed
menace.

As one, the girls squealed in alarm.

Boob Girl jumped back, banging into a
shelf loaded with big beach balls. The balls and Boob Girl went flying.

A sigh of resignation hissed through
his teeth. Reaching down he offered her a hand up, but she stumbled to her feet
and shot off. The remainder of his unwanted admirers immediately followed her.