Treasure Lane Dragons: Complete Series (BBW Paranormal Dragon Shapeshifter Romance) (62 page)

He didn’t think he was. It wasn’t a case of simply feeling bad about himself – dragons had far too much ego to waste time on silliness like that – no, he
knew
. Deep down in his bones, he felt inadequate, not up to par. How could a dragon without a hoard and without direction take a mate and promise to make her better?

He had to build himself up before he could dream of adding Pearl into his life. He had to be… better.

The plan had only been loosely formulated in his mind. He’d find the gold he was sure was hidden deep within Sleeping Dragon Hill. He’d get crews to extract it from the rock – under strict supervision. He would build a lair near Shifter Grove to keep his riches in and then… he would bring home his bride. If she’d let him and if the distance between them and the separation didn’t kill him before.

Ares’s lips curled back in a wordless snarl and he jumped up on his feet, determination driving him back to work. He checked the phone quickly and was somewhat relieved to see no new messages from her. There were only so many he could take before he’d forget all about his convictions and crawl back to her, still only half a man, and beg her to let him in her arms again. Being with her had felt better than any pile of gold, but he knew he couldn’t truly have one without the other.

Then he let the shift take him again. Power surged through him, elongating and widening him until he could barely fit on the outcrop he had carved for himself on the side of the mountain. Boulders and piles of loose rock shuddered around him as he let out a loud, bellowing roar, the sound echoing back from the nearby mountains and reverbing through him and the surrounding areas. Ares could hear heavy stones roll down the mountainside in the distance somewhere, taking part of the ground with them.

This was a dragon’s territory now and he could shape it as he pleased.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Pearl

Pearl had given up on checking her phone. It had been far too long now to think that Ares had just got caught up in something and forgotten to let her know. Her cheeks still burned red with humiliation every time she thought back to the fact that she’d truly believed he’d felt something for her. How silly could she be?

Naïve dreams and just pure stupidity on your part, Pearl.

She huffed, straightening a strap on her harness. The grand opening of her store was to take place the following day and she had done everything in the store she could possibly think of. Well, she’d done it, redone it, re-redone it and when she’d gone to fix the same damn things for the fourth time, Dalton and Danni had combined forces to kick her out of the store.

Pearl didn’t like the eagerness with which they removed her from
her
store, but she did appreciate the motivations behind it. She had to go out and relax before her head exploded. So she did what she always did when she couldn’t clear her mind – went climbing. Except that there weren’t any bouldering walls or indoor climbing facilities in Shifter Grove.

Who needs plastic walls when you have the real thing,
she thought with a grin.

It was her third hour climbing up a challenging but not impossible sheet of rock on the side of a mountain not far from Shifter Grove. She’d lovingly come to know it as Lying Dragon Peak, named after a particular dragon who had just wanted to get into her pants and then disappear without a word.

Carefully, she inserted another climbing device into the rock, determined to stay alive during this climb and maybe make the ascent another time as well. She’d been an avid climber for many years but had only taken to more daring, experimental climbing in the last year. There hadn’t been that many options for it in Delaware, after all.

Pearl had left her phone home and, for all it was worth, thought she was better off that way. At least then she’d stop checking the damn thing every few minutes, right? Wouldn’t do to be clinging to her phone when on her tiptoes, keeling precariously over some gorge, now would it? She had told Dalton where she was going, but Pearl seriously doubted whether the young werebear had paid any notice to it between texting his girlfriend and pretending to know what was going on in the store. Sweet kid but, damn, teenagers were tough to work with sometimes.

As much as Pearl was completely annoyed with herself and Ares, she couldn’t deny that her life was certainly looking up. She was beginning to cultivate friends who cared about her, and people in Shifter Grove genuinely needed her to set up the store, so completely failing wasn’t all that likely. Living so close to nature felt much better than Delaware ever had and she felt like she was really making strides towards becoming the kind of person she wanted to be.

Now if only that pesky dragon would get out of her thoughts already.

Pearl grumbled to herself as she heaved her body up another few feet of solid rock. She glanced downwards, tracking the path a pebble made as it bounced against the rock and then skittered lower until she couldn’t see it anymore. She was a long,
long
way up, but that just made her grin and take another step. Pearl loved the danger, the slight uncertainty that came with every climb.

She didn’t consider herself a daredevil. All her climbs were planned and she rarely ever climbed alone. In Shifter Grove, she hadn’t found anyone quite into the sport yet and, frankly, she doubted she’d be great company with a dragon on her brain anyway. But that didn’t mean that she was any less safe – in her mind, anyway.

Suddenly, the mountain trembled a little. It wasn’t even enough to shift Pearl’s grasp, but it certainly made her stomach knot and her hands push against the stone a bit harder. She clung to the rock until the shuddering stopped, feeling the wobble go right through her. A frown crumpled her forehead and she looked around, as if expecting to see the source of the disturbance.

All day, she’d been hearing odd noises and loud clattering sounds. It was almost as if the earth was being turned somewhere, mountains being pushed and pulled and giant boulders being displaced. But that sounded silly even to her. She’d figured it must have been a series of small rocky avalanches further on in the mountains and she’d be safe as long as it wasn’t too close. But if it was close enough to shake Lying Dragon Peak then it had to have been something more serious than just noises in the distance.

With a bit of a pout, she looked up. Her destination was just another fifty or so feet above her – a good while of climbing – but she couldn’t risk it.

“Not this time, Lying Dragon,” she said, grinning a bit at the name she’d given the mountain.

She was just beginning to take her first steps downwards in an attempt to lower herself to the ground, when the mountain quivered again. This time, it wasn’t just a gentle shake but one that grew more and more violent.

“Fuck,” Pearl cursed, looking around frantically for a place to secure herself better.

She clicked her second safety carabineer to a hook she’d attached to the cliff and hung on for dear life as the mountain groaned and creaked below her. Pearl felt the little ledges under her feet give away one after the other, leaving her hanging only by her hands and the harness hooked to the side of the mountain. She scrambled to find another foothold.

Pearl glanced down again and the sight that greeted her kicked the air out of her lungs. The mountainside she had climbed up was rapidly disintegrating into dust below her, somehow falling inward and away from her into the belly of the mountain. She screamed as she felt the solid stone crumble and tear loose from the rest of the mountain, dragging her down along with it.

All she could do now was try to hold on to something and hope that the inevitable didn’t happen and that the rock wouldn’t crush her. Her hands gripped the stone so hard she could feel her skin tearing and she pressed herself against the wall as she toppled down into the depths of the mountain. Faintly, she could hear herself squealing as the air rushed by, and then the afternoon sun that had been shining too brightly was suddenly replaced by the bleakest darkness.

Her carabineers were still attached to the mountain as she came to a sudden, violent stop. Pearl slammed hard against the ground, her little piece of mountain still mostly in one piece underneath her. Smaller stones and plenty of dirt fell down around her and on top of her, making her cough and wheeze for breath. With her eyes shut tight, she expected another huge pile of rocks to tumble down upon her and kill her on sight – but it never came.

When she finally dared to open her eyes, Pearl found herself keeling precariously on the precipice of a gorge. A bit of the wall she had been climbing before the mountain decided to break apart had managed to get stuck between larger boulders, keeping her safe from immediate death – for now. She was only hanging by her carabineers and safeties, her toes over the edge, hanging over what looked like solid blackness below.

“Oh my god…” Pearl whispered.

Looking up, she could still see sunlight through a murky blanket of dust. The mountain had partially collapsed into itself, revealing empty shafts within that had gobbled up much of one side of the mountain. Somehow, she had got lucky enough to not be introduced to what lay below. But by the way the pocket of dirt and rock she was nestled on creaked and grumbled, she was sure that wouldn’t be the case for very long.

Bruises and cuts covered her body. She knew she had to have been hurt, that her body had to have been covered in extensive wounds, but she couldn’t feel them yet. Adrenaline was pounding through her veins so fast and hard that she thought she’d pass out from the excitement. Experimentally, she moved one of her hands but was met with a threatening creak right away. The best she could do was to lay very, very still and hope that someone, somewhere, had noticed that half the fucking mountain had just disappeared and came to investigate.

Pearl felt something press against her chest. She frowned, inching her hand closer to it – she’d forgotten that she was still wearing the dragon stone. When her fingers curled around the chain she was wearing, she closed her eyes with a sigh.

For a moment, she wondered whether she would sink so low as to believe in dragon magic. She also had to wonder whether lying there, inches from death, was the
best
time to call for Ares. But hadn’t he given her that necklace with the promise that he would come if she needed him to? And didn’t she really,
really
need him now – or anyone really?

But, she had to be honest with herself, if there was one person she wanted to see before she tumbled to her graceless death, it was that abhorrent dragon. What that said about her state of mind was something she didn’t really want to think about.

Ares, help.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ares

Few creatures – other than the dragons themselves – had ever been introduced to the delicate workings of a dragon’s psyche. Deep down inside, they were basic creatures, as all humans and shifters were. They were driven by a few guiding principles, and whenever one of those was questioned or endangered, they would lash out. For dragons, those things were their mate, their hoard, and their pride. Hurt one and feel the burn of dragon fire, hurt two and give up any notion of physical safety right then and there.

Ares felt like all three had been taken from him in one fell swoop and he was damn sure he wasn’t going to stand for it.

He could feel something was wrong even before he heard Pearl’s call. His entire world convulsed and tremors ran through his mighty body, stopping him in his tracks. The dragon looked up, listening intently. He could hear a shockwave of sound go through the surrounding mountain ranges, much like the ones he had been creating when dismantling Sleeping Dragon Hill. It was an avalanche of some sort, somewhere, but far away.

Before he could think about what he was doing, he had taken flight. The sun glinted off his golden scales and twinkled off the gold streams in the rocks. It seemed to be of little importance now. He was already flying towards the source of the sound when he heard Pearl’s call.

It went through him like a lightning bolt. His innards twisted and a hiss rose to his jaw, a strangled roar restrained deep within him. His fire burned and jostled within him and each muscle became tense and rigid, fearing the worst. Ares hadn’t expected her to use the pendant. He knew she was far too proud to call for him if there was nothing wrong, so she had to be in danger – and that thought terrified him.

He flew as fast as he could, sure that he was getting closer to her. Her scent and her presence, combined with the magic of the dragon stone, led him straight to her. It didn’t hurt that there was a big column of dust rising from the exact spot he felt her presence from.