Nathaniel (Dragon Hearts 1) Read online

  “You were serious about putting me in an actual dungeon?” Chloe repeated incredulously.

  “It was built fifteen centuries ago, at the same time as the castle,” Deryk supplied mockingly.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” she muttered disgustedly.

  Deryk stepped around Nathaniel to bend down until his face was level with hers. “It even has chains on the wall we can attach your wrists and ankles to. Maybe we can even find some whips and a couple of paddles, as you seem to like having your ass smacked so much.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I can scent your arousal, little girl,” Deryk all but growled.

  Nathaniel could imagine Chloe’s red-faced reaction to his brother’s sick humor at her expense. But he doubted Chloe knew Deryk was playing with her. Not when she believed the two of them to be involved in some form of illegal activity, and that they also probably intended to kill her at some point.

  Besides, they hadn’t used those chains on the dungeon wall to secure anyone for a couple of centuries now.

  Nathaniel wondered what Chloe would say if she knew they’d had this castle built for themselves, he and his brothers, all those centuries ago? She wouldn’t believe him, of course. No one would, not unless they actually saw their dragons, and that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Bastard!” Chloe confirmed how seriously she was taking Deryk’s conversation as she spat the word in his face.

  His brother straightened to glance at Nathaniel. “This one is going to be fun to break.”

  “Give it your best shot,” Chloe challenged. “I’m tougher than you think.”

  Deryk chuckled, but Nathaniel gave an inward groan. This woman really didn’t know when to shut up. Her defiant attitude was merely encouraging Deryk to continue to toy with her as he played on her fears. “Definitely the dungeon,” Nathaniel stated firmly as he turned in the direction of the steps leading down into the depths beneath the castle.

  Chloe’s anger and bravado left her to be replaced by increasing fear as Nathaniel strode across the entrance hall, her attention caught and held by the suits of armor lining that hallway. Eight of them. Which was a bit of overkill, if you asked her. Most stately homes she’d visited had happily settled for one suit of armor in the hallway rather than eight.

  They did look authentic, though, right down to the dents and scrapes on all of them. There were eight swords on the wall, too, one behind each suit of armor.

  Chloe lost sight of the entrance hall as they went through a doorway and Nathaniel began to descend some stairs. Not wooden or carpeted ones, but stone steps that look as if they had been hewn out of the rock beneath the castle. The air chilled too the lower they went.

  He really was taking her to a dungeon, was Chloe’s panicked realization.

  How had this happened to her?

  Why had this happened to her?

  Her own curiosity and big mouth were responsible, she realized with a sinking stomach. Her need to chase a story down, no matter what the danger or consequences. Well, this time she had obviously seriously pissed off the wrong people. She shouldn’t have revealed her suspicions, of course; illegal drug and arms dealers weren’t known for the softness of their hearts. There was too much money at stake.

  The only thing in Chloe’s favor at the moment was neither of these men knew she was a reporter. If they did, she doubted they would have even bothered taking her to a dungeon but would have killed her already.

  Or maybe not.

  No one would be able to see the blood spatters down here.

  These thoughts really weren’t helping her already frayed nerves.

  It became darker, and then darker still, colder too, the deeper they went, until the floor evened out and Nathaniel flicked a switch that turned on several lights along the rock-hewn corridor in front of him.

  “What did you expect?” he mocked as he must have heard Chloe’s relieved sigh. “Lit torches?”

  She ignored his sarcasm as she turned and lifted her head to see they were approaching what looked like a medieval torture chamber from the set of an old movie. Except this was far too real to be a prop in a movie. The front of the cell was iron bars from floor to ceiling, but the other three walls were more of that solid rock. Inside, there was only an iron bedstead and a bare mattress.

  But it was the chains on the walls that held her attention as Nathaniel lowered her to the stone floor. “Please don’t leave me alone down here.” She grabbed hold of his arm as he turned to leave. “I don’t like being shut in confined and dark spaces.”

  Chloe had been in the car during the accident that had killed her mother. It had been a dark winter night as they drove home from the supermarket that day, the roads slick with ice. The car had gone into a skid, her mother screaming at Chloe to hold on as the car spun round and round before hitting something with tremendous force.

  Chloe had found out later it was an articulated truck, and their car had been squashed beneath it. Her mother had been killed instantly. Chloe had been trapped in the vehicle with her for hours while the firemen tried to cut them out of the mangled wreckage. Ever since then, Chloe had a fear of enclosed spaces, particularly small dark ones like this cell.

  “Hand it over.”

  “What?” The question became moot as she realized Nathaniel was looking at the backpack she still carried. Damn, she had been hoping to keep that, thought maybe there might be something inside that could help her escape. Instead, she reluctantly swung it off her shoulders and handed it to the patiently waiting Nathaniel.

  “Empty your pockets.”

  Double damn, her cell phone was in the front pocket of her jeans. Not that she thought she would be able to get a reception down here, but she would have felt less vulnerable knowing she had it. Besides, they couldn’t keep her in this dungeon forever, and she might have been able to telephone for help.

  Instead, she was forced to hand her cell phone over to Nathaniel too. Along with her car keys from the other pocket. “Please—” She broke off the plea as she looked at him properly for the first time and realized he was no longer wearing those wraparound sunglasses.

  His eyes were the green of clear cut emeralds.

  Glowing eyes the color of clear cut emeralds.

  In the same way Deryk’s eyes had earlier glowed that eerie gold…

  Chapter 4

  “Who are you?” Chloe demanded as she began to back away. “What are you?” Her voice rose in panic as she came up against the cold stone of the wall behind her and couldn’t get any farther away in the confined space.

  Chloe’s was an age-old question, Nathaniel acknowledged wearily. He also knew the truth was likely to send even this feisty woman into more of a panic than she obviously already was at being kept here against her will.

  He’d removed his sunglasses when he came into the castle, but as Chloe was thrown over his shoulder at the time, she wouldn’t have seen that. Her reaction now told him his eyes must be glowing.

  Because carrying Chloe, her close proximity and scent, meant he was still aroused.

  Her hair had come loose as he carried her, and it now spilled about her shoulders in that spectrum of colors from red to gold. Her eyes were a dark blue, no doubt due to the fear she was trying to hide. Her cheeks were pale, but she nevertheless held her chin high with a defiant I’m-not-afraid-of-you attitude.

  He turned away. “I’ll bring you some food and water down shortly—”

  “You’ll answer my fucking question before you leave!”

  Nathaniel came to an abrupt halt, his back having stiffened at what he was sure was a deliberate move on Chloe’s part to antagonize him by swearing at him again. She really didn’t have a self-preservation bone in her shapely body.

  Because she didn’t know what he really was, he reminded himself. Chloe believed he and his brothers were drug or arms smugglers. The truth was, human drugs had no more effect on them than alcohol did. Nor did Nathaniel need a gun, or anything else, to enable him
to destroy an enemy.

  Damn it, he had tried being reasonable with this woman.

  Mine.

  All while fighting the increasing demand of his dragon to take and claim.

  It was a battle Nathaniel knew he had lost as his gaze narrowed, pinpointed on Chloe’s curvaceous form.

  Chloe barely registered Nathaniel moving before he was pressing her back up against the cold cell wall with the heat of his body, both her hands held captive above her head by one of his.

  A very angry and very aroused Nathaniel.

  The former was evident in those eerily glowing green eyes, the latter in the hard ridge of a very large cock pressing against her abdomen.

  Note to self: in future do not piss off the man holding me prisoner in an actual dungeon.

  That glowing green gaze moved down to Chloe’s lips, and she realized she was running the tip of her tongue nervously across them.

  If anything, his eyes glowed even brighter.

  Chloe had never seen anyone’s eyes do that before. Any human eyes, that was.

  What the hell…?

  She was letting her imagination run away with her. Of course Nathaniel was human. Wasn’t everyone? Well, maybe not some of her ex-boyfriends, who she was sure were aliens from another planet, including Keith, but—

  She was becoming hysterical.

  Of course she was becoming hysterical!

  Deryk’s behavior and comments earlier had scared the hell out of her. He had sniffed her, for God’s sake. Now she was being held prisoner in a dungeon. By two men with eyes that glowed. Nathaniel should think himself lucky she hadn’t screamed more of those obscenities he seemed to take such exception to.

  Remembering the way he had spanked her for swearing at him made her cheeks burn, and not just those on her face. “What are you, Neanderthal man?” She tried to brave out a situation that had suddenly turned from scary to outright dangerous.

  The overwhelming heat of Nathaniel’s body also thrummed with tension, a mocking smile curving his lips as he caged her against the wall with his arms and torso. “Not even close. Would you like to know what you are?”

  Chloe told herself his tone couldn’t really sound as if he was growling. His voice was deep and gravelly, yes, but so were a lot of other men’s.

  What about the underlying compulsion she could hear in that deep voice? How did she explain that away?

  He settled the hardness of his hips more comfortably against her softer ones when she didn’t answer him. “You’re the woman who is asking to be fucked within an inch of your life,” he informed her as if he had just told her the weather was nice for this time of year.

  Chloe’s stomach clenched before it did some sort of flip-flop, half in fear of the intent she could now see in Nathaniel’s eyes, half in anticipation of the feel and taste of those sculpted lips against her own.

  Sick. She was sick. This man and his equally as weird brother were not only keeping her a prisoner, but now Nathaniel had become as dangerous as his brother. Maybe more so, as he was holding her body immobile against the wall and her captive hands stretched high above her head.

  Because he is dangerous, you twit. He’s a crook who makes a living out of other people’s misery.

  The bloody man was also almost twice the size she was, and strong enough to do whatever he wanted to and with her, without exerting himself in the slightest.

  She had gone about this the wrong way, Chloe realized. She should have played the poor-scared-little-woman card rather than the ballsy I’m-not-taking-any-shit-from-you-or-your-brother one.

  She forced herself to relax her body and lowered her chin from its challenging angle. “I told you, I’m…uncomfortable in small, dark places.”

  Nathaniel didn’t seem to hear her as he stared down at her for several long seconds. “I want a taste,” he finally muttered as if to himself. “Just one taste,” he groaned.

  A taste of— Oh.

  Every thought fled Chloe’s head as Nathaniel lowered his head and his lips came down gently on hers. If he had been aggressive or demanding, she would have fought him, but his gentleness totally disarmed her. His lips felt hot against hers as they sipped and tasted, coaxing her into responding.

  Chloe didn’t stand a chance of resisting. Her lips parted beneath the persuasive heat of his, and she groaned softly as the tip of his tongue ventured inside her mouth, stroking hers and causing a tremulous answering warmth between her thighs.

  She had no idea when he had released her hands. Only that her arms were now over his shoulders, her fingers entangled in the dark hair at his nape as she stood on tiptoe to allow the kiss to deepen and become more desperate.

  It was as if they couldn’t get enough of each other. As if Nathaniel was claiming her with only his lips and the heat of his tongue. It felt to Chloe as if she was trying to climb inside that red-hot skin with him, to become a part of him and never let him go.

  Which was…stupid. Stupid and dangerous.

  This man and his brother wanted to have sex with her, together, after which they would probably dispose of her body somewhere no one would ever find it.

  Was Nathaniel softening her up for the main event? Was he showing her that he would be the “good cop” while his brother was the “bad cop”? Did the two of them get off on this?

  Wrenching her head sideways was the only way Chloe had of breaking the kiss when Nathaniel’s body was melded to hers from breasts to thighs. “Get off me.” Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears.

  He slowly raised his head to look at her, revealing those green eyes were slightly unfocused and glowing even more than they had been before.

  “Get away from me!” Her hands pushed desperately against his rock-hard chest in an effort to push him away.

  Nathaniel felt as if he was waking from a dream, his thoughts incoherent, his vision slightly blurred, all of his senses saturated with the feel of Chloe and the perfume of her arousal.

  Mine, mine, mine.

  Nathaniel’s vision snapped back into focus, his head clearing and allowing him to think as he fought his dragon’s claim. He had to get away from this woman. Fast. Before he did something they would both regret.

  He kept his gaze fixed on her as he stepped back and away from her. “I’ll leave the lights on, and I’ll bring down the food and water soon.” He picked up her things from the floor to take with him.

  “What about trips to the bathroom?”

  He glanced toward a rusty bucket in the corner of the cell.

  “Now you really have to be kidding me,” she muttered disgustedly. “I’m not going to pee in that.”

  Nathaniel breathed shallowly, not wanting to draw in any more of her scent, knowing at the moment he was as dangerous to Chloe as Deryk was. More so, in fact.

  Because he hadn’t wanted to let her go. Hadn’t wanted to stop kissing her. What he had wanted was to throw her down on the dirty mattress, rip all her clothes from her body, and plunge his cock so deep inside her, he became a part of her and she became a part of him.

  He’d bedded more women that he cared to think about during the last fifteen hundred years. But Chloe… She did something to his insides no other woman ever had. Something he didn’t understand and wasn’t sure he wanted to either.

  A fated mate?

  Hell, no. There was no such bloody thing. There never had been. Their mothers had told them that, and it was nothing more than a fairy tale. The same mothers who hadn’t told them they would never be able to get back into Annwn once they entered the human realm.

  This was it for them. There were no fated mates. Just this never-ending existence until, one by one, they became completely dragon and had to be destroyed by their own brothers.

  They had discussed this between them many times, knew exactly what had to happen. After killing the last of his brothers, the final brother would kill himself before he turned feral and let loose his dragon on the world.

  In the meantime, Nathaniel would get Chloe out
of this situation somehow—although he wasn’t sure quite how yet. If he consulted Grigor and his other brothers, they might agree with Deryk that she should be eliminated. Nathaniel couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Take her to our cave.

  Nathaniel gave a snort. If Chloe thought the amenities in the dungeon were primitive, then she really would think she had returned to the time of Neanderthal man if Nathaniel took her to his cave.

  It was the place he went to when he wanted to be dragon for more than a few hours. A huge cavernous place in the volcanic mountains of Iceland, far away from the nearest civilization. He had a nest there, of sorts, and some of his treasures. A dragon could never be completely separated from all its treasures.

  But his cave had none of the comforts Chloe was used to, including heat. His natural temperature was always a few degrees higher than a human’s, anyway, but in dragon form, he had a thick hide that kept him at a temperature that would most likely kill a human. His vision was also sharper as dragon. All his senses were.

  He also doubted Chloe would be interested in eating raw fish, as he did when he spent time at his nest. Humans went to supermarkets and bought their fish and meat in sterile little packets rather than snatching up a fish or small animal in their claws and taking it back to their cave to gorge on its blood, flesh, and bones.

  No, he couldn’t take Chloe to his cave.

  “Then don’t,” he answered her abruptly.

  “I have to pee somewhere.” The more they talked about the subject, the more Chloe felt as if she needed to pee now.

  She was still a little shaken from kissing Nathaniel and being kissed by him. Nor was there any excuse for her behavior. It was certainly far too early in her captivity to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Besides, she’d been attracted to Nathaniel before he made her a prisoner.

  “Do you have CCTV cameras down here?” She squinted up at each wall in turn, looking for a hidden camera. “Do you and your sick brother get off on watching and humiliating a woman? By forcing her to pee in a bucket? Does it give you a little thrill to catch a glimpse of her pus—”