Mia: Dragon Clan Page 2

  Robert reared back as if hit. “You discredit our clan with your words. The violence done to her did not come from my orders or with the support of anyone in this room. And since when were you friends with anyone?”

  Aiden’s neck ached from swiveling it back and forth to track the exchange between the two males. Steffan still stood at the entrance to the hall, looking completely unperturbed at the clan leader’s anger with him.

  “Nathan came to visit me a few times and brought his mates with him. We go back a long way.”

  Aiden couldn’t believe what he heard. The guy who he’d envisioned as some loner had visitors from other clans. He might be hot, but the general consensus was that Steffan wasn’t all okay in the head. The guy literally lived in a cave, for the sake of the gods. Dragons didn’t do that sort of medieval shit anymore.

  Aiden snorted, and those silvery eyes suddenly focused right on him like laser beams. He struggled not to shrink back in his chair.

  Steffan merely grunted and then he smiled. A blinding show of white teeth against dark skin and even darker scruff. He looked like a damned pirate. A mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know pirate. All he needed was a parrot and a cutlass, and he’d be set.

  “Aiden,” Rhiannon scolded him. “No need to be rude. I, for one, am happy for Steffan to accompany us. If there’s any danger or trouble from anywhere, he’ll be a great asset.”

  Rhiannon and Kate both held positions of great importance in the clan, being on the female council and both possessing strong magic. Rhiannon was one of the most powerful healers the dragon world had, a Warder and a protector of the clans and bloody ancient, to boot.

  Okay, so she wanted Steffan along. Fair enough. And, yes, the dude was tough. But did she think Aiden incapable of protecting them? He might not want to go on this jaunt, but if he had to, he’d rather not be pushed into proximity to his…crush. “What am I? Chopped liver?” he muttered under his breath.

  “Two males are better than one.” Rhiannon reasoned. Of course, she’d heard him.

  He didn’t want to get into an argument with her. The female held too high a rank in their clan, so he merely shrugged, but inside his emotions raged. Pissed-off anger vied with a scary surge of excitement at the idea of spending time with the male who haunted his erotic dreams.

  “If Steffan goes, then there’s no need for Aiden to go along, too.” Robert addressed Rhiannon.

  The female looked from Robert to Steffan and finally to Aiden, and he swore he saw a twinkle in her eye. “Oh, I think I’d feel much better having two males, as I said, Robert. If you please.”

  For a moment, Robert appeared to be about to say no, but his shoulders sagged imperceptibly and he sighed. “I’ve not the time for this. Take them both. But, you—” Robert pointed at Steffan “—damn well behave yourself out there. You represent this clan when you go out into the world, and I don’t want any disgrace brought upon our heads because of your actions.”

  Aiden had to admire Robert’s balls. Steffan could take Robert apart in a moment if he so wished. In a straight-out battle for dominance, Robert would lose. And he’d lose badly. But the clan had a strict hierarchy, and the female elders wouldn’t take kindly to Steffan going postal on Robert’s behind. So, for now, he clearly felt safe to assert his dominance.

  “You must pack immediately and leave this morning. We got word yesterday that the female will be at an open art fair where she lives, and you must meet her there. Pretend to be buyers for her art.”

  Marvelous. His day got better and better. Finally, the meeting came to an end, and Aiden found himself standing in a small group containing Robert, Steffan, Rhiannon, and Kate. He tried his hardest not to inhale Steffan’s delicious scent, but it proved hard to ignore.

  “Okay. This is the young woman we found, Mia Rogers,” Robert said. “She lives alone with only her dog. No family. There was an incident in her past—she set a shed door alight from the inside whilst being locked in, and social services were involved, along with mental health services. It’s how we found her. One of the notes in the file said it struck the authorities as very odd how only the door burned and nothing around it. It sent a red flag to our private investigator who found the information.”

  Robert held up a picture, and Aiden got a good look. He’d seen Claire, briefly, and this girl looked similar, but not exactly the same. She looked softer, less striking but prettier. She carried more weight, and it gave her curves, along with a more rounded face. Her coloring too was similar, but not identical. Her hair shone a dark brown but with warmer tones, her skin still olive but paler. The most startling difference came with her eyes. Whereas Ice owned eyes the color of the clearest tropical sea, this girl possessed the same arresting aqua around the edges, but they faded to a warm, mossy-gold at the center of her irises. They were astonishing, and he could spend an age looking at them. She was beautiful. He understood Robert not wanting to send bonded males. If their scents matched in any way, they’d likely push Mia to be with them. “So the brief is bring her back here, if she is amenable. Then Nathan, Ice, and Dom can come visit.”

  “Yes, sir.” Steffan gave a mock salute.

  Aiden saw Rhiannon roll her eyes, and he bit back a smirk. The next few days would be…different.

  Seemed he was about to properly meet one of the legendary Havsa women…and get to spend time with Steffan. Life had just gotten very interesting indeed.

  An hour later, Aiden stood outside his house with packed bags at his feet as he tried to calm his nerves. A rugged figure approached, and he recognized Steffan even from far away. His long legs ate up the uneven ground in a sure, confident stride. Although…did he limp slightly on one leg?

  As he neared, Steffan scowled, so Aiden tried to school his expression into something casual and natural. The man looked good enough to eat, damn him. He’d changed, and now he wore faded jeans and an old rugby shirt. The shirt clung to his broad shoulders and highlighted the perfect V shape he had going on.

  Mouth suddenly dry, Aiden swallowed and looked away. He hoped Rhiannon and Kate weren’t going to be long.

  Something made him look up, only to find Steffan looking at his house, the expression in his gaze unreadable. Aiden turned and looked at it, too. He loved his little home—for short periods of time. Small, only one bedroom, but he didn’t need anything larger. Of course, too long on clan land and he started to itch with the need to get away, the familiar pull to travel and learn. The need not to be trapped by the place and the life the way his father had been.

  “Don’t know how you can stand it,” Steffan muttered.

  Aiden frowned. “Stand what?”

  “Living somewhere so small and poky.”

  He laughed. “Dude, you live in a cave. A cave! No windows. Cold, dark. Low ceilings. I love my house, but I’m hardly ever here anyway.”

  “My cave is nothing as you imagine. Why aren’t you here?”

  “Because I’m away on archaeological digs much of the time. I have a few human contacts who have no idea what I am, and they let me go on digs with them. I only go on those related to human and dragon interaction. Most humans think the dragon symbols they find are merely to do with myth and legend, but of course, I know different.”

  Steffan turned to him. “You dig up evidence of dragon culture? From the past?”

  Aiden nodded, suddenly uncomfortable with the focus of the other male.

  “Hmm. Interesting.”

  “It is interesting. There’s such a rich history, but we have lost much of it as it isn’t written down endlessly in the same way human history is. We worked with the humans, then we fought them, and at times, we fought other dragons. It’s…fascinating. Things are so boring now.”

  Steffan grunted. “Be thankful for boring. Those times brought much loss.”

  Aiden didn’t have an answer to that. Nor to the heavy sorrow weighted in Steffan’s words, so he shut up.

  The next few days were going to be pure torture. His attraction to the older male
came with a side order of intimidation and a low, simmering resentment. He hated it. Normally, he spent his days in a happy state of equilibrium, not dealing with this churned-up bag of emotions. He didn’t deal with emotions. Or people, really. Which he supposed gave him and the other male something in common. They were both loners, the only difference being the degree to which they shunned society.

  Steffan went whole hog and barricaded himself away in his cave up the mountain. Aiden chose instead to run away on a regular basis, spending his time with dusty bones and old artifacts.

  A huge off-roader pulled up, Rhiannon at the wheel, and Aiden’s shoulders relaxed slightly at the sight of the two females in the vehicle. Steffan clambered into the front seat next to Rhiannon, and Aiden climbed into the back next to Kate, thankful he didn’t have to sit close to Steffan the whole way there.

  Rhiannon careened down the mountainside like a rally driver,and by the time they entered the small coastal town of Pentref Tawel, Aiden’s stomach threatened to bring up his breakfast. He almost fell out of the car when it ground to a halt, and he took in great big gulps of blessed sea air.

  The tiny town looked postcard perfect. They were staying in a holiday rental for a few nights, in case it took a while to persuade Mia to return with them to the clan.

  The house sat across the road from them, facing the main thoroughfare and the seafront beyond. They’d have spectacular views. Trying to ignore his shaking legs from the last thirty minutes of extreme nausea, he opened the back of the SUV and started to drag out their bags.

  With no time to look around, they all hauled ass up the stairs and dumped their bags into their rooms.

  *****

  Four hours after setting up her stall, Mia had grabbed a quick lunch and a cuppa and returned to her table. She sat and watched the crowd move around for a few minutes, then she picked up her book and tried to read. The reading passed the time, but she’d also learned over the years it helped bring people to her table. If you stared out at the crowd, always looking for a sale, it put people off. But sit back and wait for them to come to you, and they tended to drift over. Once they’d spent some time looking at her art, she’d casually lift her head and offer a smile. Only then, if they smiled back and maintained eye contact, would she perhaps begin to chat with them. It worked for her, and she preferred it. She wanted to be an artist, not a saleswoman. If it meant picking up a few months’ worth of shifts at one of the out-of-town supermarkets when things got tight, so be it.

  At the far end of the hall, she noticed a tallish young man enter, flanked by two women who looked to be anywhere from their early forties to possibly early fifties. It proved hard to tell, but the one with the darker hair looked the oldest. Maybe midfifties, even. The guy snagged her attention away from her musings because, quite frankly, he was gorgeous. Pretty enough to break through her inertia and seemingly terminal lack of desire these days. Blond hair, green eyes, and a tan made him glow with health and vitality and stand out in the room. He smiled at something one of the women said, revealing perfect teeth. The trio meandered about the room, and she watched them for a moment until, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone else. Someone who sucked up every single molecule of her attention.

  Striding into the room came a guy so striking, she did a double take. Tall, very tall, and broad as a house, he loomed over everyone in the vicinity. His sharp gaze flitted around the room, and she found herself hoping it didn’t land on her. Despite his undeniably handsome face, his size and stern countenance made him intimidating as hell.

  His eyes moved around the room like a hawk looking for prey. Everything about him screamed strength and power. His movements were lazy, deceptively so, and she knew he could unfurl the speed and strength he locked down the moment he needed it.

  He reminded her of the pictures of highwaymen and vagabonds from the children’s picture books she used to read. He dressed in modern clothes, but he didn’t seem to fit them—or the modern world in general. He stood out in the most obvious and glorious way. As if someone had taken an ancient heirloom and stuck it in a cheap furniture store amongst all the modern, throwaway tat.

  She ducked her head back to her book and once more tried to read, too unnerved by his presence to keep watching him. Only when she realized she’d gone over the same line four times, did she once more look up.

  The gorgeous blond and the two women stood to one side of her table, looking at her work. He glanced her way and smiled, warming those pretty eyes of his. Something about him, about them all, struck her as strangely familiar. A warm, vanilla scent filled the air when he moved and made her want to reach out and trail her fingers down his tanned arm. He turned his face to her and inched closer, but as he neared, the smile dropped from his features.

  Unable to care about his seeming displeasure, she focused on her own problems. Her heart pounded as he neared, and it raced far too fast. Trying to take a deep breath and control herself, she froze in her seat—the proverbial deer in the headlights—as he frowned at her, his lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval.

  A shadow fell across the blond, and a brief glance to the side showed the vagabond in their midst.

  Her gaze crept upward, slow because she wasn’t sure if she dared look at her highwayman straight on.

  As if time had slowed, she crawled her way up his body, taking in the hard lines and angles of him until she reached her destination. Her eyes met his, and the go-slow time seemed to flat out stop. No one had eyes that color. Their strange silvery-gold light shone out of his face, molten and hot. As he took her in, eating up her features, his eyes grew warmer in tone.

  “This can’t be happening,” the blond said under his breath.

  What did he mean? She glanced at him but found herself drawn back to the vagabond, sucked in by the tractor beam of his gaze.

  “I’ll be damned.” He ran a hand over his square jaw and shook his head. “Fuck me.”

  When he moved his arm, a breeze washed over her, and Mia swore she scented the ocean, but underneath, lying in wait, something muskier, spicier, and oh-so-sinful. Her core throbbed and she fidgeted a little in her seat, her face heating.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy?” one of the women said. “You two look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” She laughed at the big scary man and rolled her eyes. “Males! Allow me. My dear,” she addressed Mia, “we’re interested in your art, and we’ve come a long way to meet you.”

  Forcing herself out of the strange stupor she’d entered, Mia turned to the woman and plastered a smile on her face.

  “Oh…erm…that’s lovely. I hope you’re not disappointed. You can see it all online, though.” She didn’t want to seem rude, but something about this party struck her as deeply odd.

  “Be that as it may, we’d like to talk to you in person. We’re interested in perhaps purchasing quite a lot of your work.”

  “Do you represent a gallery?” She tried not to get her hopes up, but she wondered if they’d come from a London gallery or something. This might be her break into the big time.

  “Something like that. We’d need to explain it all to you in person. In private, too. Not here. Can we possibly come to your home? Have a talk with you?”

  Normally, she wouldn’t hesitate to say yes, but she glanced at the dark-haired man again and swallowed. She couldn’t deny her attraction to him—which made her a total hussy as she liked the blond just as much—but the dark-haired one scared her too. God, his face! He looked like he’d been carved out of the stone the mountains themselves sprang from. So much for her not having any desire left. Maybe it had been dormant due to her grief? And to be fair, these guys were so spectacular, they’d make a nun rethink her vows.

  They’d asked her something, hadn’t they? She scrambled her brain for an answer.

  “Erm, I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t normally invite strangers into my home.”

  “Oh?” The woman narrowed shrewd eyes. “My mistake, I thought I’d read something about you welcom
ing prospective buyers into your studio so they can see your work on a more intimate level.”

  Oh, crap. The local paper interview last year. It would be online, and anyone looking into her could read it. Shit, what to say?

  The woman with the long dark hair shot through with streams of gray leaned forward and placed her hand on Mia’s. At her light touch, a warm glow covered Mia’s skin, so lovely and welcoming. Like a log fire after a long, cold day. “Please, my dear. Let us come and visit you. We only want to talk.”

  Mia’s fears scattered like the clouds, and she couldn’t remember why she’d been worried in the first place. These lovely people wanted to come and see her art. Perhaps buy some of it, maybe a lot of it. Yes, she’d love to have them visit.

  “Of course, you must come. How about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow is marvelous. Thank you. We will see you then.”

  They turned and walked away, the two women looking around at the art. The blond stared at the floor, and the dark one looked straight ahead, right until he reached the door. Then he turned back and gave her one last, lingering glance.

  She felt it all the way to her damned toes.

  Chapter Two

  Steffan stepped out into the fresh but warm air and took a big gulp, trying to clear the female’s scent from his sinuses. Gods, but he’d wanted to haul her over that flimsy wooden desk and carry her out of there. And he knew Aiden felt it too. They were in a whole heap of trouble.

  Bad enough he’d spent the whole of the car journey trying not to breathe in Aiden’s scent—and failing. Bad enough, his attraction to Aiden had bloomed into something totally new and scary in the space of a couple of hours in his company. Bad enough, he and Aiden were perfect matches for two bonded males…and Aiden wanted him, too. But then they’d met her. And she matched them as if she’d been designed for them by the gods themselves.