Nathaniel (Dragon Hearts 1) Read online

  Deryk eyed him curiously. “He doesn’t want to share?”

  “Not this time, no.”

  “Could she be your fated mate?”

  Nathaniel scowled. “I thought we had all agreed there’s no such fucking thing as our fated mate.”

  “But—”

  “It’s at times like this I wish our bodies didn’t have a total lack of reaction to the effects of alcohol.” They had learned years ago that their immunity to alcohol made it a complete waste of their time and money.

  Deryk still eyed him curiously. “How can you be sure she isn’t your fated mate?”

  “She’s human.”

  And they were dragons.

  Mystical creatures of myth and legend.

  They were also men.

  Men and dragon combined, and they had been alive for over fifteen centuries.

  Ten male children. Sons of a human king and the ten sorceresses sent from Annwn to bear his dragon children. Once pregnant, those sorceresses had returned to Otherworld to give birth to their sons. When those children reached the age of the equivalent of thirty-five human years, they had ceased to age and their dragons had awoken, indicating it was time for them to return to the human realm to protect their human brother.

  But not before their mothers had told them of another prophecy. A promise that, for their unselfish service to the earth realm, they would one day meet their fated mate. The one woman who had been born just for them, and who would bear their offspring.

  All these centuries later, none of the dragons had yet found their fated mate. Some, like Deryk, were starting to turn feral without the mating to a female to soothe their warrior spirit. Their dragon natures were starting to take precedence over their human side, until one day there would be only dragon left. When that happened, the other brothers would have no choice but to destroy the feral dragon he had become.

  After the death of their human brother, they had spent the first two centuries searching the far reaches of the world for the female dragons who would become their mates. They had discovered many Other, also hiding in full view of the human world, but no female dragons existed.

  They still searched, every fifty years or so, in case that had changed. But so far, there were still no female dragons for them to mate with.

  In the meantime, all their hearts were becoming as hard as the jewels they coveted and hoarded beneath the castle that had been home to them all for so long.

  They were powerful, as only their beasts could make them. Wealthy in the jewels and money the human world had given them. Yet none of the eight dragons that remained had ever found the fated mate promised to them.

  Until now?

  A part of Nathaniel wished it was so, because then there might be hope they could save Deryk.

  But Nathaniel’s senses told him the woman he had met today was completely human. And no human female could ever be the mate of the dragon as well as the man.

  To attempt to do so might kill her.

  Chapter 2

  “It’s really over this time, Keith,” Chloe spoke impatiently into her cell phone.

  “But—”

  “I have to go now. Bye.” She ended the call before her ex could start whining again, sighing deeply as she turned the cell phone off completely so that he couldn’t call her back.

  Keith had changed his mind—again—and had now decided he did have the time to join her in Wales after all. Ha. After six months of being messed around with by Keith’s capricious nature, Chloe’d had quite enough, thank you very much. Their schedules often clashed so that they only saw each other maybe once, sometimes twice a week, anyway. It wasn’t even as if the sex had been that great either.

  She’d just been too lazy, Chloe realized now, to go through the angst of the final breakup and then the bother of looking for someone else.

  Far from her home in London, and Keith, and with a mystery to solve and the possibility of a story at the end of it, it seemed much easier to end things between the two of them once and for all.

  And that decision had nothing to do with six foot seven inches of unadulterated sexual fantasy come to life.

  Chloe hadn’t been able to get the man from the castle out of her mind for the past two days. Or out of her dreams for the past two nights. Vivid, Technicolor dreams that caused her to wake up panting, her nipples hard, clit throbbing, her pussy dripping with the slick juices of her dream-induced climax.

  Those dreams of the behemoth had been more satisfying than actual sex with Keith had ever been.

  Sleep had taken her to a place where that huge and sexy stranger was completely naked, allowing Chloe to see that part of his anatomy was in complete proportion to the rest of his amazingly muscular body. In other words, extra-extra-large!

  Mm, yes please.

  Receiving a phone call from Keith this morning and having him tell her he was coming to Wales after all, after she had spent the night dreaming of erotic and satisfying sex with the big guy—she really did need to find out what his name was; couldn’t keep calling him big guy or Mr. Muscle—had been the equivalent of a cold shower.

  In other words, no, thank you.

  It had rained yesterday, and rather than go back up the mountain, Chloe had decided to leave it another day before returning. She’d spent most of yesterday in the village asking the locals more questions about the inhabitants of the castle. They seemed a pretty closemouthed lot when it came to the men at Pendragon Castle, but one of them had let slip that the men were brothers. She had also spoken to the mother of one of the young ladies who had “spent the night or two up at the castle.”

  According to Mrs. Jones, it had just been a youthful indiscretion for young Bronwyn. She was now married, with two young children, and living in Cardiff. And no, her mother was sure Bronwyn wouldn’t discuss that night with Chloe.

  Chloe hadn’t thought it tactful to ask the elderly lady which brother Bronwyn had slept with and if the sex had been as good as Chloe had dreamed it was.

  Much as she might have wanted to.

  Way to go, Chloe, she congratulated herself. She was having fantasies about a man who she believed could be bringing illegal drugs or arms into the country and seducing innocents from the Welsh Valleys.

  Today, as it wasn’t raining or forecast to do so, Chloe had made plans to go back up the mountain. Not in the hopes of seeing Mr. Muscle again, she assured herself firmly, but in the quest for more knowledge as to what the hell was going on up there.

  Yeah, right.

  Why was it that the sexiest men were always the bad ones too?

  Looking at it a different way, maybe it was the fact they were bad men that made them sexy.

  Whatever the reason, Chloe had every intention of going back to Pendragon Castle today. And if she was lucky, she might even get to talk to her nighttime fantasy again.

  She was back.

  Despite his warnings, his rudeness, Nathaniel knew the woman from two days ago was back on his mountain. Again.

  He didn’t know whether to be intrigued or angry with the redhead’s bloody-minded persistence.

  Once again, Nathaniel’s superior vision allowed him to observe her from the vantage point of one of the turrets long before she reached the castle.

  Her hair was secured at her nape today, muting the red color and revealing the slenderness of her throat and her vulnerable nape. She was wearing a blue T-shirt, the same color as her eyes, with fitted black jeans, and carrying a backpack on her slender shoulders.

  Nathaniel’s eyes were drawn to the bag as it bounced against her back just above her delicious ass. Round and heart-shaped, that ass would fit nicely in his hands as he plunged the heavy length of his cock inside her and—

  What the hell was he doing?

  Yes, his human form would allow him to fuck this woman, as he had fucked hundreds before her, but his dragon was too unstable where this woman was concerned for Nathaniel to dare take that risk.

  When dragons mated, they bit their mat
e on the back of the neck hard enough to break the skin and allow the dragon to take some of her blood, and in return, she would receive the aphrodisiac in the dragon’s saliva. A human woman was not only likely to scream hysterically if she was bitten, but also die from the brute force of the lovemaking the aphrodisiac would make her unable to resist.

  If the woman was a fated mate, the barb at the base of his dragon cock would also swell and then lock him inside her.

  Having that conversation with his mother had definitely been filed away as one of the most embarrassing moments of his life in Nathaniel’s long living memory.

  This woman could not be his fated mate.

  The physical attraction he felt for her meant he needed to stay well away from her, at the same time as he couldn’t let his brother find her on the property. If Deryk was drawn to her as much as Nathaniel was, then his brother would simply take her, and to hell with the consequences.

  “I thought I told you to go and never to come back.”

  “Jesus!” Chloe spun round so fast, she almost fell over a tussock of grass at her feet. One of her hands did press against the palpitations his appearance had caused in her chest. “How do you do that?” she snapped.

  “Do what?”

  Mr. Muscle was wearing a dark navy-blue T-shirt today, along with faded jeans. The wraparound sunglasses were once again hiding his eyes, although the sun really wasn’t that bright today. This was Wales, for goodness’ sake, where it rained more often than not.

  “Keep creeping up on me in that way,” she accused, hands down at her sides as she glared at him. Not just because he had caught her unawares—again—but because she really did respond to this man on a sexually visceral level she had never experienced before.

  It was…unnerving.

  He tilted his head to one side. “This is my property. I’m at liberty to do anything on it, even creep if I want to. Whereas you…”

  “Yeah, yeah, go away and don’t come back.” She gave him what she hoped was an engaging grin. “Don’t get me wrong, this is a lovely area, but there isn’t a lot to do other than hike during the day and read a book in the evening. You’re the first really interesting person I’ve met since I got here.” As Chloe knew, a little flattery could go a long way with a handsome man.

  This man looked far from impressed as he studied her stony-faced for several seconds before speaking again. “Are you flirting with me?”

  Chloe chuckled. “Well, if you don’t know, then I can’t be doing it right.”

  “You aren’t from around here, are you?”

  She laughed. “Did the London accent give me away?”

  “The fact you’re flirting with me gave you away.”

  Chloe felt her unease returning, as there had been no answering smile on his face during any of this conversation to show he was simply returning her banter. She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Why is that?”

  His smirk was dangerous rather than reassuring. “The local women know better.”

  “That isn’t what I’ve heard,” she came back pertly.

  Nathaniel couldn’t work out if this young woman was naturally open and friendly or merely too naïve to know when she was putting herself in danger.

  Mine.

  Not again, Nathaniel warned impatiently, aware that breathing in the woman’s scent—lemons and flowers—had gone straight to his cock. Again. Something his dragon was very happy about, apparently.

  “I’m Chloe, by the way,” she announced before he could think of a suitable reply to her earlier question. “Chloe Evans.”

  “You’re Welsh?”

  “Maybe way back in my ancestry, but otherwise no.”

  Nathaniel stared at the small and elegant hand she held out to him. He didn’t want to touch her and give his dragon something else to roar his approval of.

  “I assure you, it’s clean,” she teased when he didn’t return the friendly gesture.

  “Nathaniel,” he bit out tersely at the same time as he thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Breathing her in was too much temptation. Touching her as he had yesterday was a mistake he didn’t intend to repeat.

  Her smile became rueful as she straightened. “Maybe you could invite me in for a cup of tea or a cold drink now that we’ve formally introduced ourselves?”

  Nathaniel eyed her exasperatedly. “Are you usually this forward?”

  Chloe had never really thought about it before, but yes, she supposed she was a bit pushy. Make that a lot pushy. It was the only way to get on in journalism. Although she accepted, with this particular man, she might be biting off a little more than she could chew.

  “How do you know, for instance,” he pressed. “That I’m not a mass murderer?”

  Chloe’s unease deepened. “Are you?”

  His brows rose. “I’m hardly likely to admit to it if I am.”

  “Well, I survived our first meeting, so hopefully I’ll survive our second one.” She shrugged. “Any chance of that cup of tea or cold drink?”

  His nostrils flared as he breathed heavily. “My brother isn’t up to us having visitors today.”

  “Your other brothers are away?”

  His sudden tension was palpable. “How did you know about my brothers?”

  She shrugged. “Someone in the village mentioned it.”

  He quirked one dark, surprised eyebrow. “Voluntarily?”

  Chloe frowned at the strangeness of the question. “Well, I didn’t have to twist their arm or pay them, if that’s what you mean,” she dismissed lightly.

  “Interesting,” he murmured.

  Chloe had no idea why it should be. It had been her experience that people in villages were only too eager to talk about the other inhabitants. Especially ones with a bit of a mystery attached to them, like the men living at Pendragon Castle. “So there’s only the two of you here right now?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  She gazed up at him quizzically. “You know, it’s very difficult to have a conversation with someone when you can’t see the expression in their eyes.”

  Nathaniel was well aware of that. As he was aware he was a mass murderer of sorts. Admittedly, all those deaths had been during battle, and many centuries ago, but he doubted Miss Perky—Chloe—would be able to differentiate between the two. Death was death, after all.

  It was also interesting that the compulsion they kept on the people in the village to stop them from revealing anything about them to strangers hadn’t stopped them from answering at least some of Chloe’s questions. As far as Nathaniel was aware, that had never happened before. Further indication there was something…special about Chloe Evans.

  And his sunglasses were remaining exactly where they were. The expression in his eyes right now would probably frighten the hell out of her. His eyes glowed when his emotions were aroused, and Chloe made him physically aroused without even trying. The sound of her voice alone was enough to wake his dragon.

  “Daylight hurts my eyes,” he dismissed.

  “You aren’t a vampire, are you?” Her lips curved in a teasing smile.

  Nathaniel wondered what she would say if he told her he was a dragon, not a vampire, but that vampires did exist. Werewolves too. Would she run off screaming? The challenge in her eyes told him probably not. “No, I’m not a vampire,” he drawled.

  “Whew, that’s good to know.” She gave another of those friendly grins. “What do you all find to do here all day?”

  His patience was starting to wear thin, wafer thin. “I don’t have time for this, so if you wouldn’t mind removing your delectable ass off my mountain—”

  Chloe had trouble holding back a laugh as she saw the way Nathaniel’s—nice name—mouth had tightened at the slip. “You think I have a delectable ass?”

  His brows rose above those sunglasses as a visible sign of his exasperation. “I also think you have a smart mouth,” he rasped.

  “I like you too.” Chloe bumped her arm ag
ainst his, instantly aware of the rock-solid muscle beneath the tanned skin. He felt as warm to the touch as he had yesterday. Too warm. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well. “Is your brother ill?” If he was, she had a feeling Nathaniel wasn’t going to be far behind him.

  “What makes you think that?” he prompted cagily.

  “You said he wasn’t up to seeing visitors today.”

  “I’m perfectly well, thank you.”

  Chloe spun round as another man spoke behind her. Deryk, from the way he had answered her question. “How did you do that?” Her tone was accusing. It was almost as if these men dropped from the sky. Which was impossible.

  Deryk was almost as tall as Nathaniel, which was huge, and just as muscular in a long black leather duster, black T-shirt and black leather trousers. But he didn’t look much like his brother, with his overlong blond hair and golden eyes. Golden eyes? There was no such thing as gold-colored eyes. Pale brown, maybe, but not gold.

  Yep, they were definitely gold, she decided after a second look. Intensely focused golden eyes, ones that almost appeared to glow from the lighter flecks fanning out from the black of his pupils.

  The rest of his face was…well, he was as magnetically attractive as his brother, with his high cheekbones and very straight nose. But his sensual lips were grimly unsmiling, unlike Nathaniel, whose mood seemed to fluctuate between exasperation and amusement. Both at her expense.

  One thing Chloe did know, their father must have been a huge sonofabitch, handsome too, to have produced two such tall and attractive sons.

  “Is this her?” Deryk ignored her and addressed his question to Nathaniel.

  “Yes,” he confirmed, tight-lipped.

  That golden gaze swept over Chloe, from her walking boots to the red of her confined hair. “You’re right, she is beautiful.”

  Much as Chloe appreciated knowing Nathaniel had told his brother he thought she was beautiful, it actually didn’t sound like much of a compliment coming from Deryk’s sneering lips.

  Nathaniel was big and powerful, but there was a barely leashed wildness about his brother she wasn’t sure she altogether trusted. Which, as these men were criminals, was to be expected.