Releasing the Dragon Read online

  When he first started having the dreams, he’d been determined not to go. He wasn’t looking for a mate—having one would only complicate his life, he told himself. And there was no law written or otherwise that said a Kindred warrior had to go claim a female when he started Dream-Sharing with her. He would just ignore the dreams and eventually they would go away. Right?

  Wrong.

  When they had first started, the dreams had only come to him once in a solar week. But when he decided to ignore them, they started coming more frequently—every night. Eventually it seemed that every sleeping moment he had was filled with visions of the lovely little Earth female with her long red hair and big brown eyes.

  The problem was, she was fucking gorgeous—exactly his type—and Dru couldn’t ignore or deny it. Oh, she was plumper than what human males considered attractive but Dru had never liked stick-thin females. This little goddess had full, curving hips and heavy breasts he ached to cup in his hands. She didn’t look like she’d break the moment he took her in his arms—not that he ever intended to, Dru told himself firmly every time he woke, sweating and aching with desire in the darkness after having another dream of her.

  Besides her curvy figure, she had other endearing characteristics as well. For instance, the pale skin of her face and body was dusted all over with little brown speckles. Dru had seen them before on other Earth girls—but no one he had seen had nearly as many as the girl in his dreams. They fanned out over the bridge of her small, pert nose and covered her face and her skin in an unusual and alluring pattern he couldn’t get enough of looking at. “Freckles” he’d heard some Earth girls calling them on the Mother Ship, but a warrior of his acquaintance who had called a bride with such markings called them “Goddess kisses” which to Dru’s mind, fit much better.

  And yet, for some reason, the girl in his dreams covered her Goddess kisses with some kind of pale, skin-colored paste whenever she left her domicile. Dru thought that was a shame—the kisses on her skin gave her character and made her even lovelier than she already was. And that was saying something because she was already the most beautiful female he’d ever seen.

  Still, he tried not to think of her. Tried to ignore the dreams and the growing compulsion he had to go and claim her as his own.

  I can’t do it, he told himself. It’s not right to involve a female in my life—not when I go so often into danger. Having a bride would change everything—it would change me.

  He never admitted—even to himself—exactly how it would change him. He never allowed himself to think about what often happened to Kindred of his kind who called a bride and allowed themselves to love her completely.

  Deep inside him, his second half—his Drake—stirred uneasily. It was a beast of fire and smoke and protective rage but for now it slept—albeit lightly—within.

  Dru didn’t want it to wake up.

  Calling a bride—taking the girl as his own and claiming her—would certainly do just that. It would awaken the hungry beast inside him. It might even force him to shift to his second form which had happened only once, during his manhood ceremony on Yarren, the Drake Kindred home world.

  Dru could still remember the tearing pain of his body changing, growing… becoming alien and frightening. The feeling of being filled with fire and rage as he stood on the mountaintop and spread his great, black wings for the first—and what he hoped—was the last time.

  He didn’t want to feel that again, despite the power the beast inside him brought with it. It was considered a mark of passion and illogic among his people to allow the beast within to come out more than once in a lifetime. It would be a shame to his family and a shame to himself if he allowed his Drake to come out again or—Goddess forbid—to come out on a regular basis.

  He supposed he was lucky—unlike a Rai’ku Kindred, a Drake Kindred wasn’t forced to consume a sentient being after changing in order to shift back to his humanoid form. And once the initial change was past, the Drake could sleep inside indefinitely…unless it was brought to the surface by some outside influence.

  An influence like the curvy little female in his dreams, Dru thought grimly.

  Allowing himself to shift meant a loss of self-control—the loss of reason—not to mention danger and possibly death to anyone in the immediate vicinity of the beast inside him. He wanted no part of that. As far as he was concerned, the Drake could sleep forever and he would be perfectly happy.

  But dreams of the girl never failed to stir his darker half. When he woke in the night with her lovely face and curvy body still before his mind’s eyes, he felt the Drake rising inside him, spreading its wings and roaring to be set free.

  Mine, the beast inside him insisted. She’s mine—I must claim her! MINE!

  At such times it was all Dru could do to subdue the Drake and ease the urge to change. Usually he had to take his shaft in hand—already rock hard with desire for the sexy little stranger—and bring himself to completion many times before the need to claim her subsided. And even after coming over and over the barb at the base of his shaft ached, longing to thrust into her flesh and tie her to him—longing to make them one.

  It was becoming harder to put off his Drake—and to put off his own need to see her in person. There was an itch inside him—the Claiming Itch, he’d heard some warriors call it—that was compelling him to find her. An itch that had to be scratched.

  Eventually, Dru realized he wasn’t going to be able to ignore it.

  I can’t go right now, he’d told himself sternly, after waking up sweaty and needing with his shaft achingly hard and his Drake stirring strongly inside him. What about my career? My lifestyle isn’t a fit one to bring a female into. The missions I take are too dangerous. And if I claim her, she might wake my Drake completely. I would lose control of myself. I would shame myself and my family—I might kill those around me that the Drake perceived as a threat to her.

  But none of his reasons seemed to matter to the Itch. It forced him onward, against his will—driving him nearly crazy with the need to at least see her in person—to touch her curvy little body—to hear her voice in more than his dreams.

  Finally he had to give in—but not all the way.

  I’ll just go see her, he told himself firmly. I’ll introduce myself and kiss her hand. Then I’ll leave again.

  Maybe that would ease the Claiming Itch and bring some peace to his Drake as well. Maybe then he could stop dreaming of her and get on with his life.

  Maybe. Dru could only hope. Because these dreams of her every night were driving him fucking crazy and he couldn’t stand it anymore!

  And that was how he found himself standing in front of the door to her domicile, wearing his Kindred uniform of black leather trousers, tall black boots, and a heavy, silky black and crimson uniform shirt. Within him, his Drake stirred uneasily—aware that something momentous was about to happen but not awake enough to perceive what that might be.

  And then she opened the door and Dru knew he was lost. Utterly and completely lost, Goddess-damn it.

  What in the Seven Hells was he going to do?

  Three

  Annie couldn’t believe the dark man in her dreams was standing right outside her apartment door with his big boots on her cute little Wipe Your Paws doormat.

  “What…who…?” she gasped, taking an involuntary step back. He had to be almost seven feet tall and his eyes were burning into hers as he glared down at her.

  “I am Drugair of the Drake Kindred,” the man growled, stepping into her apartment as though he owned the place. “But I am not here to claim you.”

  He had a precise way of speaking and an accent she couldn’t quite place, Annie thought distractedly. Was it Russian? German? Something dark and guttural and completely foreign. But his strange accent was the least of her worries now.

  “Why are you here, then?” she demanded, recovering some of her poise. “I don’t even know you.”

  “So you are a liar as well as a temptress,” he snarled.