Dark Embers (35 page)

She screamed again, her body arching wildly off the bed as he found her G-spot and began to stroke.

Sweat poured down her, pooled hotly between her breasts. The need to orgasm was urgent, all-consuming, but Dylan refused to let her. Instead, he kept her on the razor-sharp cliff of desire until the pleasure almost felt like pain.

And then, suddenly, her hands were free and he was lifting her, turning her until she was facedown on the bed. Slipping an arm beneath her pelvis, he lifted her hips, positioned her. With one thick finger resting against her clit, he slammed into her from behind—driving deep, driving home.

He pounded into her again and again, his hips pistoning against her buttocks as he stretched her to overflowing. He was invading her—every corner of her mind, every cell of her body, every inch of her soul—and she was suddenly afraid that she would never be the same again. With a cry, she tried to pull away. It was too much; he was too intense. He wanted something from her she wasn’t sure she could give.

The realization was alarming, frightening, dangerous, and she struggled to back away from the abyss yawning in front of her. But the heat kept building, and he wouldn’t let her retreat. He pounded deeper, harder, as if he could chase away her doubts and his with the incredible strength of his will alone.

She turned her head and their eyes met for the first time since he’d slipped into bed beside her. She gasped at what she saw. Filled with fury, dark with hurt, his eyes burned with a need he didn’t want to acknowledge but couldn’t deny.

For the first time, pain pierced the haze of pleasure that surrounded her, and again Phoebe struggled to get away. But he held her to him, careful not to hurt her despite his violent emotions and the heavy thrusts that brought him fully inside her.

His thumb rubbed against her clit. The need to orgasm rose again, sharp and insistent, and she tried to fight it. She didn’t want it—not like this. Not when Dylan was so angry with her that his eyes burned dragon black with it.

But he didn’t give her a choice, and eventually her body betrayed her. With a flick of his finger he sent her soaring, and as she convulsed around him, she felt him stiffen. Felt him pour himself inside her as the pleasure went on and on.

When it was over, he pulled out almost instantly and rolled away from her with a groan. He was asleep within moments, but she spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, tears leaking slowly down her face for all that they had found . . . and lost.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

W
hen she finally climbed out of bed the next morning, Phoebe was stiff, uncoordinated. Her body felt used, and not in a good way. She turned on the shower and then stared at herself in the mirror—at the marks Dylan had made on her last night, with his passion and his rage.

There was a large bruise on her right shoulder from where he’d bitten her, a scratch on her right hip from where the dragon had gotten away from him. Bruises ringed her wrists from where he’d kept her hands pinned against the bed, and her lower lip was swollen, bruised from his bites.

She closed her eyes, barely able to look at the destruction—of her body and their relationship. Any other night, the signs of his passion would have thrilled her, would have made her feel sexy and desirable and oh, so beautiful. After all, the only other times he’d marked her had been when he’d been driven out of his mind with need and desire. She liked knowing she could do that to him.

But last night hadn’t been about desire or need or love or even hate. It had been about rage, about a fury so deep, the only way he could express it was physically. He had taken her, dominated her and destroyed her all in the same act.

She wanted to weep.

The shower was hot and soothing, but she didn’t stay in it long. Standing there with the spray pulsing over her just gave her more time to think, something that, for the first time in her life, she didn’t want.

After shutting off the shower, she toweled off quickly, then slipped into the bedroom for some clothes. She was sore, her muscles aching from exertion, but she ignored the pain. She slipped into a pair of black pants and an emerald green blouse, gathered up her notebook and turned to go.

Dylan was still sleeping, his glorious body spread out across the bed in repose. The sheets were tangled around him, covering only the most basic parts, and a part of her—silly, self-destructive—wanted to reach out and touch him. Wanted to run a hand down his face to cup his strong, stubborn jaw. Wanted to trace the triple band of his tattoo, which had been shifting and changing a little bit more with each day she’d known him.

She’d meant to ask him about it a number of times, her scientific nature beyond curious at the magic implicit in such a thing. But she’d always forgotten; when he was naked, his tattoo was very often the last thing on her mind.

Now she’d never get the chance. Because much as she cared about Dylan, much as she loved him—she nearly choked at the word—she couldn’t stay with a man who despised her. A man she couldn’t trust.

He’d sliced her heart wide open last night, then had rolled off her and fallen asleep like she was nothing more to him than a one-night stand. She couldn’t live like that.

Murmuring a soft good-bye, she gave in to folly and brushed her lips across Dylan’s forehead. Despite the bruises, he hadn’t hurt her body last night, but he had all but killed her soul. The fact that he’d done it with mind-shattering pleasure only made the destruction all the worse.

She made her way out of the cave slowly—without Dylan beside her, it was dark and just a little frightening. But she made it to the mouth of the cavern with no mishaps, and stood blinking in the sunlight like an owl.

“You look like a woman on a mission.” She jumped, startled, at Quinn’s voice so close to her ear.

“And you look like a man who finally got some sleep.”

His smile was almost nonexistent. “Don’t think I won’t pay you back for that.”

“Of course.” She glanced across the desert, unable to look him in the face when she said, “I’m sorry, Quinn. Sorry I didn’t tell you, sorry about Liam, sorry—”

“Stop it. I would have done the same thing.”

“What?” This time she did look him in the face, afraid she’d finally lost her mind.

“That’s a mighty big accusation you leveled last night. Biological warfare, murder, assassination of the clan’s royal family. Yeah, I would definitely have kept my mouth shut until I had some kind of proof.

“There’s no blame here, Phoebe, unless you lay it at the door of the fucking Wyvernmoons. That’s who I’m blaming, and believe me, I’ll get my pound of flesh. Or ton of it, as the case may be.” The look he flashed her was all teeth and feral eyes and pissed-off dragon.

He dug in his pockets, pulled out a cigarette and lit it from flames dancing along his fingertips. It was the first time she’d seen him smoke.

He noted her look and grimaced. “Spare me the lecture,” he said. “I’m burying my brother tomorrow. I don’t think a few days with an old crutch is too much to ask.” He took a long drag, then asked, “Where are you going so early?”

“The lab. Having a sample of the actual mutations should make finding a cure a million times easier. I want to get started.”

“You can’t go alone.”

“Excuse me?” she asked frostily.

He rolled his eyes. “Dylan’s got the whole clan on lockdown, which means no one by himself and serious protection for you and other persons of interest.”

“But how am I supposed to work—”

“Give me a minute. I’ll get Shawn or Logan up here and then I’ll take you.”

“And you count as serious protection?” She arched a brow.

“You have no idea.”

But she did, she realized, remembering the moment she’d seen Quinn reach through layers of skin to rip out his enemy’s internal organs. None of the other dragons could do that, not even Dylan, though he certainly had other powers to compensate. Maybe it was the dark side of his healing gift. Mend or tear asunder, the choice was his. A little shiver worked its way down her back at the thought.

Quinn was true to his word: within three minutes, a sleepy Logan was at the gate, looking rumpled and unshaven and entirely too good for the morning after an all-nighter. Lucky, lucky dragon women.

He nodded to her, brushed a soft hand down her arm in support, and she felt tears prick her eyes for the first time in many, many years. How could these men understand her choices when Dylan couldn’t? How could they each offer their support when all Dylan could do was rage?

She dropped a quick kiss on Logan’s cheek before starting through the desert after Quinn. Dylan had built a garage for their cars about a mile and a half away, and she was almost used to the hike. Almost.

“You know, the fastest way is to fly.” Quinn eyed her speculatively, unconsciously echoing the same words Logan had used the night before.

“I know. Just do it quickly before I change my mind.”

He was shifting before she had finished speaking, and when he was done, she was almost as awestruck as she had been when she’d seen Dylan for the first time. Where Dylan’s dragon was black and sapphire and silver, Quinn’s was the same startling emerald as his eyes.

When he lowered his neck for her to get on, she didn’t hesitate. And when they took flight, she marveled at the differences between him and Dylan. Dylan was a fast flier, all speed and strength and power. Quinn was different—he was graceful, elegant, enduring. It was like riding on a cloud versus a roller coaster, and she enjoyed the change of pace.

They got to the lab too soon, and as Quinn unlocked the place and turned off the security system, she realized she’d never seen it empty before. When she said as much to Quinn, he merely nodded. “I told you: lockdown. I wasn’t joking.”

Phoebe shivered as she walked down the dark hall—if she was staying, she would have to do something about the lights in all these places. She didn’t have the dragons’ keen vision, and she was sick of tripping over her own feet.

She was at her desk before the import of her thoughts hit her. She would never have the chance to do something about the lights, because she wasn’t staying. She would finish up this week, do her best to break down the disease, and then she would leave. There was no place for her here, and she’d been stupid to think, even for a moment, that there was.

But sitting here moping sure as hell wasn’t going to get the job done. Pushing away thoughts of Dylan and death and dragons, she crossed to where she’d stored the sample the night before and got to work.

She’d been working steadily for about three hours when she heard a crash from the next room. “Quinn? Are you okay?” Her only answer was another crash.

“Quinn?” She headed for the door between them at a run, whipping her gloves off as she went.

“Phoebe, run!” Quinn yelled as yet another crash echoed through the building. “Get out of here.”

Her blood ran cold at the fury and the desperation in his voice. She looked around wildly for a weapon, and her eyes fell on the case of scalpels on the lab counter. It was weak protection against a dragon who could shoot lightning bolts out of his fingertips, but it was better than nothing.

She grabbed two—one for each hand—and then hit the other lab running. What she saw there, however, nearly made her knees go out from under her. Quinn was under attack by four large men, and they almost had him cornered.

At the last moment, he jumped on the lab table and shot one of the men with a fireball, right between the eyes. He fell to the ground instantly. On the floor beside him were two others. Quinn could obviously put up one hell of a fight, but even he could only do so much when it was four on one.

Then one of the remaining dragons blasted him with a bolt of lightning that had his limbs jerking in every direction. And unlike the other men, who only shot bolts of electricity, this one was capable of sustaining the electrical attack.

Terrified for Quinn, Phoebe gripped the scalpels as tightly as she could, then ran across the lab straight at the back of the bastard who was doing his damnedest to kill Quinn. Not giving herself time to think, she brought them up and plunged them down hard, right in the middle of his back. Even after they’d gone in, she kept pressing with all of her strength, hoping that somehow, some way, she would reach his heart.

He howled, and his attack on Quinn ceased as he turned to confront his newest attacker. Bellowing in rage, he shot a pulse of energy at her that caused her to fly across the lab and slam into the wall so hard that she saw stars. But her aim must have been true; he stumbled to his knees and fell facefirst onto the cold, hard tiles.

He was her first kill, and she had a damn hard time regretting it.

Quinn somehow pulled himself to his feet. She wanted to call out to him to stop, to stay down. He’d been electrocuted, for God’s sake. But her brain was addled, the stars giving way rapidly to darkness. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she thought—

The world turned black.

Goddamnit, Dylan, wake up! I’m in trouble here!

Dylan?

Dylan! They’ve got Phoebe
.