Dragon Blood Read online

  “He shot John! He needs help!”

  He shook his head again, struggling to get up. “Aaron’s with John,” he said a little drunkenly, lifting his head to survey the damage. The explosion, he saw, hadn’t left anyone unscathed. Eli, Luke, and Joshua were trying to get up and bleeding as profusely as he was.

  “The explosion will bring the humans,” he said, struggling to gain his feet. “We need to get out of here before they come and find us.” He staggered when he finally got to his feet, nearly sprawling out again.

  Marlee plastered herself against him as if she could hold him up. “You’re hurt. You can’t fly.”

  He stared down at her in confusion for a moment and then lifted his head and looked at the others. None of them were any shape to fly and Marlee was hurt badly, as well. While he was trying to gather his wits to think of a solution to their problem, the sound of sirens wafted to him and then the sound of wings.

  Aaron settled on the plateau. “Gods! This a fucking mess! Can anyone fly?”

  “Take Marlee and get out of here,” Gabriel said.

  Marlee clung tighter. “No! I’m not leaving you here—any of you!”

  “Gods damn it, baby!” Eli growled and then stopped abruptly. “Mother’s lair!”

  All of them looked upward, trying to judge the distance. Gabriel wasn’t convinced he could make it that far. In fact he knew that flying was out of the question. He might climb it, but he wasn’t going to make it any other way. “Take Marlee to Mother’s den, Aaron. We’ll climb up.”

  Marlee still looked distressed, but she didn’t argue. When Aaron reached for her, she moved toward him, staggering as drunkenly as Gabriel had. Uttering a curse, Aaron surged toward her, scooped her up, and turned to race to the edge of the cliff to get the lift he needed.

  Gabriel watched him for a moment and finally turned to the cliff face looming above them. Fire and rescue was coming closer. If he didn’t move his ass there were going to be a lot surprised and unhappy people—including him. He was weaker than he’d thought, though. It took all he could do to begin the climb and it seemed the distance to the ledge where he needed to go moved further out of reach the longer he climbed. Neither Luke, Eli, nor Joshua seemed to be having nearly as much trouble. They passed him and disappeared over the edge of the ledge above him.

  He paused to rest when he thought he must be more than halfway up the cliff face, struggling for breath, wondering if he had the energy to make the rest of the climb or even cared.

  Even as the thought formed in his mind, he realized he did care, though. Marlee was up there. His son was up there. He needed to get to Marlee and make sure she was alright.

  Almost as if his thoughts had summoned her, he heard her in his mind—felt her anxiety—not her thoughts. When he looked up again, he saw his brothers, still in dragon form, peering down at him. Eli settled heavily and reached an arm down. “Just a little more, Gabe.”

  Joshua and Luke settled beside him, reaching down to grasp his arms and help him up, as well, but the help came from an unexpected direction. He thought he was imagining it when he heard the flap of mighty wings and felt the draft of air that washed over him and cooled him and then he felt arms clamp around him. A mixture of hope and doubt flickered through him when he discovered it was John. “Are you strong enough?”

  “I’m strong enough, brother,” Joshua said flatly. “Let go. I’ll lift you up.”

  Gabe wasn’t as convinced as he would’ve liked to be but he didn’t think he had much choice. He released his grip on the rocks. John dropped with him several feet when he took his weight completely and then began struggling a little higher. In a few moments they were high enough that Eli and Joshua managed to grab a hold. They heaved him over the side and Luke grasped his leg and helped him the rest of the way as John released him and settled on the ledge himself.

  Once he’d made it to the ledge, Gabe couldn’t do anything by lie where he was, struggling for breath, fighting the darkness that had been steadily draining the strength from him.

  “We need to get inside and get the shrapnel out before we all bleed to death,” Eli said grimly, grasping Gabe’s arm with his uninjured one and trying to haul him up. Luke grabbed his other arm, pulling him high enough to get his shoulder beneath Gabe’s arm and they dragged him into the den that had been his birthplace.

  Aaron, he saw, was still tending Marlee. “Is she alright, Aaron?”

  “I don’t know. I healed her wounds the best I could, but … I don’t know. She isn’t conscious.”

  He got up after a moment, laid her carefully against the floor and moved toward Gabe. “I think you caught more than anyone. I need to dig the pieces out, Gabe.”

  Gabe nodded, rolled onto his belly and passed out. The pain brought him around a few moments later. He was aware that his brothers had gathered around him to make mince meat out of him while they dug out pieces of metal, but he kept his focus completely on Marlee, trying to reach her mind.

  After a while they left him in peace and settled to picking truck fragments out of everyone else. The sounds of the emergency vehicles increased and then stopped completely when they reached the fire. Passing in and of consciousness, Gabe stared at the flashing blue and red lights that flickered across the ceiling and walls, wondering if they would be found and if there was anything he would be able to do to defend himself if they were.

  It seemed doubtful, but he focused on trying to pull strength into himself from his reservoirs of energy, hoping it wouldn’t come to a fight, hoping if it did that he could at least make some of them regret the decision to come after them.

  He had no idea if they’d left evidence of themselves on the ledge below or not. None of them had been in any shape to try to hide their presence there. The sounds below continued for hours until Gabe finally gave up trying to stay alert and gave in to the weakness tugging at him.

  It was the morning sunlight spilling into the cave that woke him. Feeling as if he’d been through a cement mixer, he struggled to push himself up into a sitting position. His wounds, he discovered when he searched for them, had vanished as if they’d never been there at all and yet he still felt like pure hell, far weaker than he could recall. When he managed to clear the fog from his mind, he lifted his head to stare at Marlee. Relieved when he saw she was breathing, he got up and moved closer. It was only as he settled beside her and reached for Marlee that he realized he was still in his dragon form.

  Doubt instantly assailed him. The entire disaster had been precipitated by them—as they were now. If they hadn’t frightened Marlee half out of her wits she wouldn’t have run right in to the trap that bastard had set for her. He knew without any doubt that that was what had happened. He would never have caught her otherwise. She was too good at what she did and too smart.

  Sighing, he sat down instead of pulling her into his arms, trying to gather the strength to shift into human form. The change didn’t come as it had before. Settling his elbows on his knees, he cupped his pounding head and tried again.

  The hand that settled on his knee broke his concentration and he opened his eyes to stare at Marlee warily, unnerved to discover she was staring at him wide eyed.

  “Don’t be afraid, baby. It’s me—Gabe.”

  “I know it’s you.”

  She didn’t seem to be afraid, but he couldn’t tell how she felt about his appearance. “I’m too tired to make the change.”

  She pushed herself up on one elbow and grasped her head, wobbling. He caught her without thinking, steadying her. She looked down at his hand where he gripped her and he released her abruptly and withdrew his hand. “I never hurt you before, Marlee. I’m not going to now just because I look like a monster,” he said tightly.

  She looked like she was going to cry. To his surprise, she scrambled up and threw herself at him, burrowing her face against his chest. “I’m so glad you’re alright! I was so worried!”

  Surprise flickered through him. He curled his arms around her tent
atively. “You were?”

  “Of course I was!” she said crossly. She pulled away after a moment, studying his face and finally smiled. “You’re handsome even as a dragon.”

  He couldn’t help but grin at her. “You think so?”

  She looked a little unnerved, but she slipped her arms around his neck and burrowed her face against him. “You’re Gabe and I love you and that’s all that matters to me,” she murmured.

  “I’m so sorry I made you think I wouldn’t care if I knew. It was just … such a shock! But all I could think after Fletcher grabbed me was that ….”

  Marlee stopped abruptly and pulled away, searching the shadowy interior of the cave.

  Relief flooded her when she counted five other dragons—four black and another golden dragon.

  Her heart leapt. “John?”

  He opened his eyes and smiled at her lazily. Stumbling away from Gabe, she dropped to her knees when she reached John, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his face all over.

  “You’re alive! I was so afraid.”

  He curled his arms around her. “I was worried about you, too.”

  She frowned, lifting a hand to her head. “He shot me,” she said when she felt the stiff hair where her wound had been.

  “He hit you with his pistol,” Aaron corrected her.

  She turned, following the sound of his voice to the source. “But … it’s gone now. I had a concussion. I was so nauseated, I know I did.”

  He grinned at her toothily and flicked his tongue at her. “Dragon magic.”

  She stared at him, vaguely horrified for a moment and then chuckled. “That’s just gross.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever works. You weren’t in any condition to object and I wasn’t in any position to offer anything else.”

  She smiled at him apologetically. “I wasn’t complaining. You had to do the gross stuff. Thank you!”

  He looked away bashfully. “We’re dragons. It didn’t seem that way to me. Anyway, you’re our ….” He stopped and flicked at look at Gabriel and then John. “You’re our woman.”

  Marlee settled beside John, leaning against him as the adrenaline that had shot through her at the discovery that John was alive began to wane. She actually didn’t feel at all well, she realized. She’d been virtually free of pain when she woke and had simply reacted, but she wasn’t totally healed. She was still a little dizzy and vaguely nauseated. She settled her head against John’s side. “That’s what John and Eli did after the bear attacked me. That’s why they thought I hadn’t been hurt.”

  “I didn’t know what else to try,” Eli said in a growly drawl still recognizable as his voice.

  “You were dying.”

  John sighed. “I didn’t actually think it would work. We’ve never tried to heal a human before.”

  Marlee digested that. “Not that I feel like objecting—now—but how did we get from healing Marlee to … uh … the other stuff.”

  Eli snorted, the sound a mixture of amusement and self-disgust. “We don’t know, baby. That’s something we haven’t figured out. We actually know a lot more about being human than we know about being dragons. We couldn’t even change into dragon form before.”

  Marlee stared at him. “Why wouldn’t you know about being dragons?” she asked blankly.

  They looked at one another. “Mother died here … protecting us,” John said quietly.

  “The Spaniards came, searching for gold, and they thought she had hidden gold here in her den. All she had hidden her, though, was us and she fought them to the death to keep them from finding us. Our fathers were human. They raised us in the way of the people—Native Americans.”

  Marlee felt her throat close. “The legend of the golden dragon,” she murmured. Even after she’d said it, however, it took many moments for it to actually sink in. “That was your mother?”

  It was stupid even to ask, she realized as soon as she had. Everything fit. Gabriel and John had taken after their mother and the others had taken after their fathers—plural. She was on the point of asking them how their mother had managed to become impregnated by six different men when she realized how absurd that was. Their mother was a dragon. Not that she knew anything at all about them, but dogs and cats could and did have multiple fathers for their offspring given the opportunity. Evidently, that was a trait shared by dragons.

  That thought led to another, but she dismissed it. She wasn’t a dragon.

  Her baby was half dragon, though. She frowned. Maybe that was a quarter?

  “They will be as we are—dragon,” Gabriel said quietly.

  Marlee lifted her head and looked at him. “How could they be? How could you be?”

  He shook his head. “We know what we are whether we have the knowledge of our ancestors or not. And we know what they are. They led us to you.”

  Marlee blinked at him, trying to assimilate that. “Wait a minute! They?”

  Eli flicked an irritated look at Gabriel. Getting to his feet, he stretched—and then transformed himself into the Eli she knew.

  Minus clothes.

  When he did, the others got up and changed one by one until only Gabriel and John were still in dragon form. The realization that they were both still too weak to change forms, because they’d nearly died to protect her, made emotion form in her throat. It wasn’t gratitude that she was still alive, although she was. It was gratefulness that they were.

  It chilled her to think they’d nearly died, that she’d come that close to losing them without ever acknowledging it to herself that she’d fallen in love with them let alone them.

  She still felt as if none of the things she’d thought happened had and yet she was lying against a very real feeling dragon and staring at another. She’d watched them change from beast to man.

  She supposed that kind of acceptance might take a while. She glanced at Eli and smiled, struggling with the urge to tell him she loved him. It seemed important to tell him right away, not to take another chance that she might miss the opportunity, and yet she wanted to tell him when they alone together. “When can we go home?”

  Eli’s gaze sharpened. After a moment, his lips curled in a smile. “We’ll have to wait for dark, baby. Nobody believes in dragons anymore, but they might if they saw dragons in the sky.”

  It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but Marlee wasn’t inclined to object when he was right—it wasn’t safe for them to be seen. In any case, she was still weak from the ordeal herself.

  “What happened to Fletcher?” she asked abruptly, feeling fear creep through her in a cold wave.

  “He decided to see if he could leap to the next peak,” Joshua said with grim amusement.

  “I don’t think he made it.”

  Marlee glanced at him when he spoke and did a double take before she could stop herself.

  Good god! The poor man was … deformed! No wonder Eli had made the joke about Tripping Rabbit! Not that it was long enough to trip over, but Knock’s Knees wasn’t that far off!

  Feeling her face turn as red as fire, she dragged her gaze from him and studied the floor since there wasn’t a one of them that was wearing a stitch of clothing. She’d almost gotten used to the fact that they strolled around the house half naked much of the time—shirtless and barefoot—but she didn’t see how they could seem so at ease without anything on!

  She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “I guess we don’t have to worry about him anymore then.”

  “I don’t think he’d in any condition to tell them anything,” Eli drawled, amusement lacing his voice. “I think I’ll find that water I’ve been smelling. You thirsty, baby?”

  She sent him a startled look. “Smelling? I’m not sure I want to drink water you can smell.”

  He chuckled. “You won’t smell it. I promise.”

  She was thirsty, but she was also a little suspicious about the invitation.

  “She doesn’t need to be walking around,” John said coolly. “She’s still weak. She lost a l
ot blood.”

  “Which means she needs the water,” Eli retorted. “I’ll carry her.”

  “I can walk,” Marlee said, getting to her feet.

  “Maybe, but that won’t give me the pleasure of carrying you, will it?”

  She smiled up at him a little doubtfully. “You were hurt, too.”

  “If I stumble and fall, you can catch me like you did old Gabe over there,” he said, scooping her up and cradling her against his chest.

  She knew he was teasing and it still embarrassed her. “I did that? I don’t remember.”

  “Good thing, too. He would’ve fallen on his face. The look on his face when he discovered you were trying to prop him up was priceless.”

  Marlee looped her arms around his neck and burrowed her face there. “I was so scared, Eli,” she murmured.

  His arms tightened. “We were, too, baby,” he said huskily. “We thought we’d lost our darling.”

  “I thought … I was afraid I was going to lose all of you.”

  “Well, we’re pretty tough.”

  Marlee uttered a watery chuckle, lifting her face to look at him. “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.” She settled her head against his shoulder. “Do you hate me for running when I found out …?”

  “Hell no! We knew you were going to. That’s why we didn’t tell you and we’d gone up to pow wow and see if we could figure out how to—or better yet, how to keep you finding out.”

  “You aren’t serious?”

  “Yeah, well, you know I tried to hint it at you. I could see right then that you really didn’t want to know.”

  “It wasn’t that! It’s just … hard to believe there’s such a thing, really, as dragons.”

  “Only the six of us as far as we know. Never met any others. We looked. Of course, we didn’t know how to assume our dragon forms or we would’ve been able to look further, but I’m thinking we’re all there is. Mother never found a mate among her own kind. That’s why she chose our fathers.”

  “So … that part of the story is true?”