Their Mating Rituals [Paranormal Protection Unit 4] (Siren Publishing Classic) (6 page)

Lina wasn’t an idiot. There was something that he was hiding and it was pissing her off, but she shook her head. “All right.” She would let it go for now. “Is this one of the things that you are waiting for Aiden to tell me or something?”

“Yeah, it is,” he told her honestly. “I will tell you if he doesn’t wake in time, but otherwise I still would prefer to wait on him, Lina. I know it sucks to have to wait and I’m sorry.” Gods, he wished he could just tell her, show her, and get her through the shock, horror, stunned numbness, and the other four billion emotions, thoughts, and accusations that all come about.

“All right, I’m going to trust you on this. Don’t make me regret it,” Lina murmured and took her tray of food to a table, having a seat and waiting for Allister to join her.

“Hey there, you,” Lina murmured as she leaned over Aiden on the moveable bed. She still didn’t get why they were moving him so soon after surgery, and not into a room either but into a large warehouse-looking place. “Open your eye and look at me, Aiden. I need to see that you know who I am, honey, please?” she asked quietly and stroked her fingers gently over his cheek as she did so.

“He’ll still be out for a while yet,” Allister told her quietly. “I need you to move for a minute while we shift him, Lina. You will be able to lay down with him if you want but we really need to move him while he’s still out cold.”

Lina nodded and took a step back while the large men moved to Aiden’s side. Again she tugged her hoodie close over her head and looked down because of Talon being there once more. “Thank you, Allister,” she murmured softly. “I think that I will lie down beside him. It will be lovely to be able to just have him to myself.” Away from Talon, a man that was making her so antsy and uptight that it wasn’t even funny.

Nodding, he helped the others move his brother with care onto the waiting thickly padded pallet on the floor. Thanking the others, he shook his head at Talon’s worried and curious look to her. “Later,” he mouthed to the man. Shutting everyone else out of the warehouse, he walked back over to Lina and waved a hand. “Pop on into bed. I’ll stick around and read while we wait for the drugs to wear off. Full bathroom’s through that door there,” he pointed. “Kitchen is right next to it and fully stocked. Run about as you want or sleep as long as you like,” he advised her honestly.

“Thank you.” She crawled up into the bed beside Aiden and continued to stroke her hand over his chest. “Thank you, Allister,” she murmured when they were alone. “For everything.” For keeping her secret, for keeping her from Talon, everything. “Do you think that he will wake soon?” she asked softly. “I just want to know he’s all right. I can’t even hear him in my mind and that has me so worried.”

“He’ll wake soon.” He believed it. He had to. The drugs would burn off at a steady and then accelerating rate. “About an hour or so and he should start to come around,” he said to her. “Just be aware when he starts to wiggle around you may need to sit up and be next to him but not right over him. His mind will go straight into battle mode, something all of us have when we’re disoriented.”

“Yeah, and I seriously think that he would feel very bad if he hurt me by accident, so we will need to make sure that he doesn’t,” Lina said as she lay beside Aiden, her hand stroking up and down his chest, over his shoulder and back again. “I just need him to wake, to heal.”

“He is healing,” he told her quietly as he picked up his book and took a seat in the large armchair. Kicking his feet out, he crossed his ankles and smiled at her. “He’ll wake up right on his own schedule. He is firstborn, which means he thinks he’s always right.” He grinned. “Even when he’s not.” Something she’d have to learn to deal with.

Lina grinned. “Well, I’m an only child and always got my way. So he’s going to have to learn that he’s not always right, that I’m the one who’s right,” she said with a smile. “I will help ease him into that though instead of beating him over the head with it. Well, at first at least,” she added with a smile.

Bursting out laughing, he shook his head. “Good luck with that. He’s not only always right, he’s also stubborn, pig headed, thick skulled, and many other names I could give you but won’t because it’s not nearly as much fun to harass him when he’s out cold as when he’s awake.” Watching her for a moment, he nodded. She’d be just fine. He had a good feeling about her.

Leaning in closer to him, she pressed her forehead to his and said, “You and I are going to butt heads more often than not, but I think that we will be able to create a great deal of things together that we will be able to be very happy about. I have a feeling that we will have a good life together.” She hoped so at least. “But I need you to wake up first.”

It was well over an hour before Aiden started to stir. Allister moved from his chair and to the bed, gently shaking Lina. “He’s coming around,” he murmured. “Sit up and ease back a little,” he told her quietly as he sat down on his brother’s other side to wait. “Come on, bro, wake up,” he encouraged softly as he watched the little twitches and shifts in his brother’s face.

Lina watched Aiden as well and added her voice to Allister’s. “Come on, Aiden, wake up so that I can know you are all right. I need you to wake up, honey, need to know that you are going to be here with me for a while.” She all but begged him. “Please, Aiden, I need you.” Those three words were spoken in absolute certainty.

Nodding to her, Allister rolled his hand around, a signal to keep talking. He caught Aiden’s hand that came up without thought in a lazy sort of swatting motion. “I’ve got you, bro,” he said and took his brother’s other hand in a loose grip. “Come on, buddy, wake up.”

“Come on, Aiden. I need you, honey. I need to talk to you. I need you to tell me about bond-mates. Aiden, I need you to show me that you will never leave me alone,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Please, honey, wake up and talk to me. Now that we can talk I want to talk to you, even if it’s in our minds, please?”

So loud,
Aiden grumbled mentally as he tried to fight his brother’s hold, but his arms felt like lead weights.

Allister nodded. “We’re not that loud. Your hearing is just a little oversensitive right now from the drugs, bro. It will settle back down as soon as you push more out of your system,” he said in a murmur, keeping his voice down so his brother’s Dragon hearing wasn’t hurt.

Drugs? What drugs? Why does everything feel like I’m stuck in fucking molasses?

“Because you just got out of surgery, honey,” Lina murmured quietly, lowering her voice as she did so. “You got so very hurt and I hadn’t been able to do as much as I should have and for that I’m so sorry. I did the best that I could. So I need you to please wake up and tell me that you aren’t upset with me.”

Never upset at you,
Aiden whispered, turning his head slightly, and cracked an eye before slamming it shut and squeezing it tightly closed.

“I’ve got them.” Allister released his wrists gently and got up. Moving to the wall, he shut off all the lights, the glow strips letting off enough light to let them see shapes. Or in his case and Aiden’s a hell of a lot more. “You can look at her now, bro, glow strips only.

Cautiously, Aiden opened his good eye and looked at her.
You stayed,
he whispered softly and happily.

“Of course I stayed,” Lina murmured softly. “You have turned me inside out, Aiden. You are the first man ever that I’ve wanted to put before myself, and I really want to know why. I need to know about this connection.” Leaning in closer, she kissed his cheek and whispered against his ear so that Allister didn’t hear. “And I think I love you.”

He heard you anyway,
Aiden said, looking to his brother, who was grinning like an idiot.
Go away for a while, bro. I need to talk to her before…
Before his body insisted he changed forms to heal at a faster and more efficient rate.

“I’ll go and grab a snack from the kitchen and maybe cook something up. You hungry yet, Lina?” he asked her. He knew she’d eaten recently, but she hadn’t eaten before that one meal very well, so he was trying to feed her as often as he could.

“Sure, anything you want to bring me is good. Just nothing with lettuce. I’m allergic to lettuce and cabbage. Weird, I know, but I’m terribly allergic, so unless you wanna see me with hives anything other than that please.” It was why she had to spend so much time special ordering her food and double-checking it before eating it.

“Right, no rabbit-type leafy things for the lady.” Allister got up and headed for the kitchen. He knew that Aiden was fighting the clock, his body was burning off the drugs fast, and the Dragon would soon take over and demand the change to heal as it should. He had to tell her everything in very little time.

Lina looked down at Aiden then. “Talk fast. I figure that there is a hell of a lot going on here that I am totally clueless on, so talk to me, love. Tell me what it is that you have to tell me so that you can go back to sleep and heal.” She looked around the darkness though and added, “But why the hell they have you in a warehouse hangar is completely beyond me.”

Licking his lips, he stared up at her, seeing her much clearer in the low light than she could probably see him.
I need you to know that what I’m going to tell you is the truth, nothing but the truth, and that I would never, ever make fun of you or yank your chain about any of it. It is truth and soon you’ll know it with a lot of evidence in your face.

“Aiden, I trust you. As crazy as it is, I completely and fully trust you. I’ve never trusted men before, but I do you,” she said softly. “So talk fast, honey, because I want to talk to Allister about having you shifted to a real hospital room.”

Snorting at her words, he smiled faintly.
I won’t fit in one in about twenty minutes.
Give or take.
I’m a Dragon, love,
he told her honestly.
We’re not mythical creatures but part of the races that Gaia created known as Changers. There are Dragons, Bears, Wolves, Snakes, Rats, Birds of all sorts, and many others, too many for me to remember most days. Because of our long lives we are given a bond-mate, someone that Gaia has chosen just for us. A person who completes us and makes everything seem that much more perfect. Some recognize their bond-mate by scent, others by touch or a vibration their soul gives off.

“A Dragon?” She pulled back and frowned. “I know you have a tattoo of one, a seriously hot freaking tattoo that makes me want to hunt down whoever did it and beat them because they got to see you naked, but still. Seriously?” She shook her head. “I know that Jackie and Allister were talking about babies being Dragons, but now you, too?”

They were?
How long had he been out?
Never mind that, for now.
He’d come back to that later.
I’m not kidding, little one. I’m a real Dragon. Talon is our King and Allister and I plus a few others are part of his Royal Guard.
Shifting slightly, he winced.
We needed to be in a warehouse because when I change to my other form to heal faster and more efficiently, I’m going to need the room. Unfortunately we’re not the smallest of the Changers.
Understatement.

“Honey, I think you hit your head,” she whispered softly. “I love you, but you are talking silly right now. But if you believe it, I will let it go. Can I at least get you moved, darling? Please? I just really need you to get better.”

Sighing, he called out to Allister and told him what he wanted.
Look at Allister, love, and maybe he’ll convince you.
Turning his gaze to his brother, he waited until she faced him and nodded. As soon as Lina looked his way, Allister let his face start the change to Dragon, his eyes shifting in color and form, his teeth lengthening, and the beginning of the longer snout starting to take shape.

Lina watched what was happening and couldn’t believe it. She had to be on an acid trip or something because people just didn’t turn into animals, into Dragons! She found herself backing in closer to Aiden and felt panic hitting her harder. “Oh God,” she whimpered. “Oh lord, you are both…” She gulped. “Dragons,” she cried and then looked down to Aiden. “And you are as well? That’s why they are saying you will heal faster, right? Oh God.” She panted. “Are you sure that I should stay?” she asked with wide eyes and saw Allister changing back to normal. “I really would rather not become a Dragon treat. Will he be fully in control of himself?” She looked to Aiden. “You would know me?”

Allister rolled his eyes. “And I thought you breaking it to Jackie was bad,” he said and grinned at the comment only he could hear. “While we are human the Dragon is always aware. It’s why our reflexes and reaction times are faster. Same thing goes when we shift forms. The Dragon is the form but the human side is still there and providing logic and thought to everything. We rarely change forms because we’re supposedly mythical. That’s why we have these warehouse spaces for when we’re injured. We can shift without worry of some scientist thinking they’ve found the Loch Ness Monster’s relative and trying to stuff us in a cage. We can stretch, walk, and relax here in safety as we heal. He will know exactly who you are and be even more protective of you in his alter form since the Dragon will be thinking he’s in charge of the situation. Likely if anyone gets too close without him spotting them or hearing them coming there may be some singed folks, but for the most part, ninety-nine percent of everyone here knows better. Especially after they get their ass cooked the first time.”

Looking down at Aiden, she asked, “Will you heal faster? Instead of the months that I was thinking, how long will it take you to heal if you were to become”—she gulped—“a Dragon?” She whispered the word because she honestly wasn’t able to force herself to say it without gulping first. She felt as if she had fallen through the looking glass, but she loved him, even now.