A Dragon's Heart (10 page)

“Yeah,” Drakk said with a grumble.

“So we are gonna do this?” Jex said, hoping his friend was going to listen to him finally.

“Yeah,” Drakk said. “Just take it slow.” He didn't know if he was speaking to Jex or more to remind himself.

Jex smiled and watched as Drakk walked to Aislinn and began to help her.
Wow, the big guy is gonna fall
.

They spent the afternoon together gathering mushrooms and talking to one another. Aislinn wanted to know about the days they spent in the facility.

“So you just stayed there because you could?” she asked, as if trying to make sense of why they did what they did.

“Yeah, after being alive for so long we just wanted a break,” Drakk said. “Humans are high maintenance. Women even more so apparently.”

Aislinn laughed and then said, “No we aren’t, only need the simple things to be happy.”

“Such as?” Jex asked.

“Well, I am sure you know that creature comforts are important to women,” she teased.

Drakk looked at Jex and shrugged. “What have we not provided for you?”

Aislinn rolled her eyes, “I can’t tell you, that is the point to it all. Duh?”

“So men are supposed to guess what their females need?” Drakk asked.

“No, you are supposed to get to know a female and then figure out what would make her happy,” Aislinn said.

“It seems a little too much,” Drakk said.

“If you want a woman, then…” Aislinn shrugged.

Jex popped around to stand in front of her and held out a hand with freshly picked wildflowers. “Here, they reminded me of your eyes.”

Aislinn grinned and winked at Jex, “See, you know exactly what I am talking about.”

Drakk sighed loudly and shook his head. “Sweetheart, I am not a flowers kinda guy.”

“You will figure it out.” Jex laughed and Aislinn blushed.

Drakk was silent for a few moments and then Aislinn said she was ready to go back to the cave and get to cooking. He frowned and looked at the ground, she had been doing a lot for them. He had been slacking in making her feel like she was special, and if he was going to commit to the whole mating thing, he had to be honest with himself. His mate was not going to be a slave, she was going to be pampered, damn it.

“We are going to have dinner. Something special, and only for us,” Drakk announced to the pair.

Jex smiled and Aislinn nodded slowly. “Like a date?” she whispered.

“Oh yeah, we are definitely dating,” Drakk said and she sucked in a breath when she saw his heated gaze. Damn, what they did to her without even touching her.

"That would be lovely, just the three of us," Aislinn whispered.

Drakk watched fire burn in her eyes as she gazed back at them. It finally hit him the little gestures were what made women respond. He could do this and he found himself wanting to do it—for her.

Chapter
Nine

Time had passed with little new information on what the groups of leaders were up to, but that didn’t mean they didn’t discover there were several things going on at the same time. Humans were, after all, greedy creatures, and it appeared that some of the people who were working for Langston were not only in it for the science. The dragons were worth more to some of them. Of course, they knew they were being hunted, because they had tracked them to Aislinn’s store.

Aislinn had wanted to go to her store and house to grab a few more items and it turned out to be a bad day when they had to inform her the ones hunting them had burned the store to the ground and then did the same to her little house. She had been devastated, and none of them had known how to fix it. Helping them had essentially ended her life in the human world.

“What if I want to open a new store though,” she had cried onto Jex’s shoulder when they told her. Both men had been worried about how she would deal with the loss of her store.

They'd held off telling her before because Jex made Drakk promise not to be an ass about it, even though when they found out their leader had shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. His comment of ‘it was for the best’, had led to the two men having a heart to heart about the way they should treat their mate. Drakk had actually backed off about it, which had made Jex hopeful. He'd known they'd made the right decision to hold off until necessary when he had witnessed his friend be kind and caring, he actually had almost cheered.

“Sweetheart, if you want to open another store, when this shit is over with, you can. We will just make sure you are safe and protected, and we don’t have a problem with it. But right now you know it is impossible,” Drakk had whispered and then kissed her forehead.

“But all my things,” she had wept.

“We will replace,” Drakk had said firmly and then had kept rubbing her back. Jex had remained silent, only offering his touch a few times, he wanted Drakk and Aislinn to get used to each other.

Aislinn’s first reaction had been guilt. She had wanted to see the destruction. When she stood staring at the remains of her life, her first instinct was to protect her men; it was when Jex knew things would be okay.

It was obvious they were what the arsonists were after, not her, and the mere idea of them being injured sent her temper off. She insisted they leave the area immediately in case someone had the place staked out, but they refused until she had the few salvageable items left un-charred in her possession. Despite her protests, the entire group had offered her more emotional support and comfort than she had ever received in her life. For a large group of manly beasts, their hearts were bigger than any human she had ever known.

Once they were all back in the safety of the caves, she let the despair and loss sink in. Drakk and Jex both were at her side, allowing her to go through the different emotions until she found anger. With every tear she shed, Drakk’s heart melted. From the big bad dragon he once was, he had found his kryptonite.

“Fuckers,” Aislinn had raged when the pictures had come up on the computer. “How did they find out you came to my shop?”

“They didn’t,” Xavier had explained to her. “See, they are looking for anyone who carried specific products. There has been businesses burned to the ground who ordered the dragon horns.”

Drakk had raged, “We are going to have to find this DragonBuy place. Whoever they are, they are going to be the key to finding what they want dragons for anyway. The list of products they are selling are truly dragon pieces. Look at the prices they are selling them for, they are making a killing charging for real dragon horns, scales, blood. Everything else goes on hold until we figure all this out, focus on finding this place. No more of our kind can be killed.”

“Our kind are being slaughtered and sold to the highest bidder,” Gandore had said and Aislinn had been stricken with grief.

“I sold them,” she had whispered with tears in her eyes looking at the men around the room. “What if it had been you, I would have been selling little pieces of you.”

The men had not said anything because they were aware what she said was the truth. Jex comforted her as she broke down and cried over the role she had played in buying the products.

“They weren’t real,” she had cried and they all had listened as she told them what the products were used for. “Horns are supposed to be good luck, and when used in a certain spell in one of the books, can actually be used as a charm to be worn. The blood was for youth, and the scales for health. They were popular because the people who used them swore they worked. Now they all realized why they worked, their dragon magic.”

Drakk and the others had gone on a rampage. Using their kind as moneymaking animals had driven them to make plans. They were going to find the DragonBuy headquarters and take it out. There was no way they were going to allow them to cover their tracks now, and that is what they were doing—covering their tracks. The only person who had owned a store that was unaccounted for had been Aislinn. According to the reports, they thought she was killed.

That is when they discovered the General, whom they hated, was running a side business. DragonBuy was his baby, and he was making a lot of money for killing dragons.

“The fucker will die,” Drakk had roared when they found out. Aislinn had been frightened that day, she had never seen him so angry, and none of the others could calm him down. “It is my job to protect you, for years I have been just sitting there thinking I was so smart, pulling the wool over the humans’ eyes, using them. The whole fucking time they were using us. They are going to suffer.”

Drakk grew restless, unable to stand on the sidelines while the humans hatched up some ridiculous plan to end them. It was time to let them know just what all dragons were capable of, and realize they were only alive because the dragons allowed them to live.

Since then, Gandore had worked day and night, hacking into the government’s files and the Pentagon’s mainframe. Much to his surprise, and their luck, they had been careful in keeping their secret mission secret. If word got out, a war like none before would erupt. They already knew that Langston had kept their escape a secret from the major players, but if they found out, all bets were off they assumed. Because of this, it pissed him off even more.

Gandore had been on Earth longer than most and had realized early on that one in ten humans might be evil—it left nine others who weren’t. Humans were stupid, though. If they didn’t step in, they would self-destruct and would be the end for every living creature on Earth. He couldn’t allow it, and would die if necessary to prevent it. Plus, he didn’t plan to die anytime soon, and Earth was their only home until the secrets of their species were revealed.

Finally, late in the evening, the day after Aislinn's breakdown, Gandore stumbled upon an email sent from the same base they had been held. General Washburn had sent what appeared to be findings on a specimen to the leader of South Korea. It was heavily encrypted, but no match for his intelligence. The more he read, the more pissed off he became.

*****

Drakk, Jex, and Aislinn walked into the cave after spending the evening out at dinner. Aislinn deserved it after what she had been through now more than ever.

“I loved the cozy restaurant you picked,” Aislinn said shyly. It had been wonderful, the dinner in the small inn just on the cliffs above them. Drakk had been happy to find the small place just a few minutes from them. It had been perfect.

The candles and the music set the scene that both men had wanted.

“I am glad you liked it,” Drakk said and pulled her forward. “One date into it though and I swear I am not sure I can hold off going slow like we talked about.”

Aislinn giggled and kissed his cheek. “Maybe we can rethink the timeframe a little.”

“Really?” Jex said hopefully and she smiled.

“Well, if the mating pull is giving me all of these feelings, then yeah, because I swear when you touch me, I burn up,” she admitted, Drakk groaned, and leaned down to kiss her, but the loud yelling interrupted them.

Aislinn had wanted to cry when the men had pulled back so quickly; she was so going to need a trip to the toy store if she didn’t get relief soon.

“Drakk, get in here now!” Gandore's voice boomed through the cave, echoing off into the distant valley that rest between the mountain peaks.

“This better be good. I was seconds away from kissing her.” He didn’t hide his irritation, but then again, he never did. Jex snorted behind him, and Drakk turned to glare.

In just a couple of short days, they had formed the base of a real relationship, giving her as much of a human courtship as possible given their predicament. Drakk and Jex had agreed they both wanted a true love before they mated instead of allowing the animalistic instincts to create one. Aislinn was hard on them, and made them both work for it. Surprisingly, her playing hard to get made them want her even more. Every kiss they stole had been a reward to their hard work. Every giggle she laughed had made them want more. Jex loved that he could make her laugh. His odd sense of humor usually got him punched by the others, or the signature shame-shake. But Aislinn appreciated it. Drakk had begun to learn that he couldn’t command her to do as he wished. She was the first to ever question his authority and made him feel and do things he normally wouldn’t have done.

The others had ridiculed Drakk when he returned one afternoon toting a bouquet of wild flowers he had helped pick. Where under normal circumstances their rousing would have pissed him off, it only made him see how much he cared for this woman.

Jex had learned a lot about himself from her also. His normal carefree attitude had taken a turn to more serious when it came to her safety. He no longer saw things as how they affected him, but how they affected her and the others. He had started to become more responsible for something other than himself, which he didn’t do much of before.

The others hoped they were going to mate soon, because Drakk and Jex were driving them crazy with their mating pull. Their stubborn leader had changed so much, to the point Gandore wanted to gag. Aislinn wasn’t giving in to either he or Jex easily, and watching the two buffoons attempt to woo her was nothing shy of entertaining to say the least. As he expected, Drakk rushed in to see what dare drew him away from the ‘wooing’ process with Jex right behind him.

“You’re make-out session can wait long enough for you to see this.” He turned the monitor where Drakk and Jex could see as he took a seat beside him.

They couldn’t believe what their eyes saw. Of all their time on Earth, they had never discovered another of their kind. “Another dragon? How is this possible?”

“I don’t know, but if what this says is true, we don’t have long to save it before it is dissected and killed.”

Drakk growled. “Get the others ready. We need to move quickly. When we are done with this we need to refocus on finding the Templar Guard instead of waiting for them to find us, this is going to be a fucking mess I think, and we need to have as much help as we can.” He flew out the chamber.

*****