Iain MacGregor,” she whispered longingly, looking up. The woods were quiet. Strips of moonlight shone through tree limbs that reached like surreal black fingertips across her vision. A single tear slid down her cheek. She touched her mouth, imagining his kiss.Taking a small pocket knife out of her cargo pants, she looked about. A mystic had once told her that if she left pieces of herself around while she lived, it would expand her haunting territory when she died. Jane wasn’t sure she believed in sideshow magic tricks—or the Old Magick as the mystic had spelled it on her sign. She had no idea what had possessed her to talk to the palm reader and ask about ghosts. Still, just in case, she was leaving her stamp all over the woods.She cut her palm and pressed it to a nearby tree under a branch. Holding the wound to the rough bark stung at first, but then it made her feel better. This forest wouldn’t be a bad eternity.The sound of running feet erupted behind her and she stiffened. No one ever came out here at night. She’d walked the woods hundreds of times. Her mind instantly went to the creepy girl ghosts chanting by the stream.“Whoohoo!”Jane whipped around, startled as a streak of naked flesh sprinted past her. The Scottish voice was met with loud cheers from those who followed him. “Water’s this way, lads, or my name isn’t Raibeart MacGregor, King of the Highlands!”Another naked man dashed through the forest after him. “It smells of freedom.”Jane stayed hidden in the branches, undetected, with her hand pressed to the bark.“Aye, freedom from your proper Cait,” Raibeart answered, his voice coming through the dark where he’d disappeared into the trees.“Murdoch, stop him before he reaches town. Cait will not teleport ya out of jail again,” a third man yelled, not running quite so fast. “Raibeart, ya are goin’ the wrong way!”“Och, Angus, my Cait canna live without me,” Murdoch, the second streaker, answered. “She’ll always come to my rescue.”“I said stop him, Murdoch, we’re new to this place.” Angus skidded to a stop and lifted his jaw, as if sensing he was being watched. He looked in her direction and instantly covered his manhood as his eyes caught Jane’s shocked face in the tree limbs. “Oh, lassie.”“Oh, naked man,” Jane teased before she could stop herself.“That I am,” Angus answered, “but there is an explanation for it.”“I don’t think some things need explained,” Jane said.
Kiril glanced around the darkened room. He walked to a leather chair and sat, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles. “Did you know that during the Fae Wars the Dark took two Dragon Kings? At different times, of course.”“I suppose they escaped as well? Are you telling me we don’t know how to hold a Dragon King?”“The Dark did . . . things to my brethren. One completely lost his mind and attacked us, which is what the Dark wanted. He had to be killed. The other King knew what was happening to him, but he couldna stop it. He came to us and begged to be killed before he could harm one of us.”Shara sipped her whisky before she said, “You lost two Kings and I lost seven siblings.”“And the Light the Dark took?”“The Dark take the Light and the Light take the Dark.”Kiril let his gaze drift down her body. How he itched to have her long legs wrapped around him. Things would be so much easier if he didn’t desire her as he did, but there wasn’t a switch he could flip and turn off his body’s reaction. The more he tried to ignore the growing desire, the more it raged uncontrollably within him.He gave himself a mental shake and returned to their conversation. “What’s the plan, then? Will the Dark storm in here and try to capture me?”Shara walked around the room, her hand skimming along the backs of the chairs. “No.”“No?” Kiril set aside his glass on the table next to him and silently rose to his feet. He followed her as if a string tied them together. “What then?”“You don’t really want to know.”Kiril spun her around so hard that her glass flew from her hand and landed upon a rug, spilling the whisky but not breaking the crystal. “Tell me,” he demanded in a soft, deadly voice.“My job is to seduce you.” She held her stance for a heartbeat before she retreated, taking two steps back.He tracked her until she was once more in the entryway. The shadows darkened everything, and yet the smallest sliver of moonlight found her, illuminating her in a pale blue glow.No longer could he deny what he wanted. Perhaps it was her confession. Maybe it was because he hadn’t taken to the skies in weeks. Whatever it was, all he knew was that he had to have her or go up in flames.“Then seduce me.
Suddenly, the man was thrown off her. Darcy looked around, but saw nothing. She rose up on her elbows to see the man climbing to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. His four comrades were looking up to the sky nervously.A huge, dark shape descended from the sky, vanishing quickly. Along with one of her attackers. Darcy was afraid to move and be taken as well. She remained still, her chest heaving.Another shape formed out of the dark sky. She could only stare openmouthed at the dragon coming right for her.Just before he touched down, the dragon shifted, taking the form of a man—a man that left her breathless and awestruck.There was no denying she was looking at a Dragon King.He stood naked, his hands at his sides while his gaze was riveted on the men who accosted her. The shadows kept much of him out of sight, but the streetlamps shed enough light of the hard sinew of his body that she wanted to see more.His lips peeled back in a snarl as he fought the four remaining men. He moved quickly, as if it were as effortless as breathing. The men began to throw huge bubbles of magic at the Dragon King. He dodged many of them. The few that hit him barely made an impact other than to infuriate him, if his bared teeth were any indication.The man—or whatever he was—who had stopped her in the pub was struck down with lethal force by the Dragon King. Darcy almost cheered, but it got lodged in her throat when she saw something out of the corner of her eye.Had she not turned right then, Darcy would never have seen the second dragon swoop from the sky and wrap its talons around another of the men before flying away, crushing him.That left just two of her attackers. They and the Dragon King circled each other on the street.“She’s ours,” one of the red-eyed men said.The Dragon King merely raised a brow. “Think again, Dark.”More globes of magic flew from the two Dark, but the Dragon King was too fast. He came up behind one of the Dark and ripped out his spinal column. The same instant the dragon grabbed the other. Both Dark fell lifeless to the ground a moment later.Darcy hadn’t moved a muscle in the few minutes that had passed. The need that had assaulted her earlier with the Dark was now gone. But she wasn’t alone.The Dragon King’s gaze turned to her. Darcy watched him standing in the glow of the streetlight, completely mesmerized by the dragon tat that ran from the King’s right shoulder, under his armpit, and down his side to the top of his right thigh.The dragon’s head was at the front of the man’s shoulder and had his mouth open as if on a roar. He was rearing with his wings up and out. It was his long tail that stopped at the King’s thigh.The King glistened with sweat that made his muscles gleam in the light. Darcy had the absurd notion to run her hands all over his body, learning the feel of his hard muscles and warm skin.Her gaze traveled down his wide chest to his washboard stomach and narrow waist. Then lower...