Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(29)
He snorted. “I’ve been alive for fifteen hundred years, so what do you think?”
“None of us can change the past, Deryk.”
“My attitude toward the women in my life hasn’t always been…kind,” he acknowledged reluctantly.
“I’m your mate, not just any woman.”
He nodded. “My past also involves much blood being spilled and many lives taken, by both my own hands and my dragon’s talons.”
“Considering you were born at the end of the fifth century, I would think so, yes.” History wasn’t Izzi’s subject, but she knew enough to know those early centuries had been a bloody time for the whole of the world’s history. As had the fifteen hundred years since. Battles, rebellion, revolutions. And Deryk had lived through it all. “It’s fascinating,” she murmured.
“That’s one way of putting it,” he muttered dryly. “I will never be domesticated, Isabella, so don’t ever think I will. My brothers and I hide behind the respectability of a security firm nowadays, but none of us hesitates to kill if we believe the situation warrants it.”
“Oh.”
His chin rose in challenge. “The question you have to ask yourself is are you prepared to accept that, to accept me and all that being a dragon mate entails?”
Was she? The alternative wasn’t too appealing. But neither was the thought of Deryk, her mate, going around killing people. Or of Deryk and his brothers setting themselves up as judge, jury, and executioner. It went against everything her studying to be a lawyer represented.
She chewed on her bottom lip. “Perhaps we should give completing the mating a little more time after all.”
Deryk’s mouth twisted. It was the answer he had expected, of course. Izabella was a twenty-first-century woman, with all the social mores that involved. Deryk might have adapted to the changes of each century as he lived through them, but that didn’t mean his thoughts and ideas were any more civilized now than they had been fifteen centuries ago. His dragon’s certainly weren’t.
His gaze avoided hers. “There’s also something about the mating itself you need to be made aware of.”
She snorted. “The biting me on the back of the neck and sucking my blood isn’t enough?”
He drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know if the Romanovs have it, but the Pendragon shifters have a barb. At the base of our cock,” he added as she looked puzzled.
Her cheeks flamed with fresh color. “It wasn’t there earlier.”
“Because I controlled it. But it can’t be controlled during the mating. It…grows, latches on inside our mate, and doesn’t release again for some time.”
Izabella’s eyes were wide even as her cheeks remained that fiery red. “How much time?”
“According to Nathaniel, a minimum of fifteen minutes, but usually much longer.”
“Is this because of the procreating thing?”
“Yes.”
“Then we definitely need to hold off on the mating until after you’ve talked to your brother Dylan and discover if he’s perfected the dragon contraceptive yet.” She nodded. “This is all too new and strange, and we don’t know each other well enough to become parents before the two of us have become comfortable in our mating.”
“And in the meantime?”
Her eyes narrowed. “In the meantime, we carry on exactly as we have been. But without any more…bodily fluids passing from you to me or vice versa.” The color blazed brighter in her cheeks.
Deryk’s cock gave an enthusiastic surge at the mention of the release of bodily fluids. “Now?” he prompted hopefully.
Izabella shook her head. “Now I think we should go back to the palace, after all. Not for my sake but for yours,” she added as he frowned. “I should have thought of this earlier, but without knowing who attacked Vaughn and why, you’re all vulnerable. You especially so if we stay the night here in my apartment. Your sword might not be here so they can kill you, but I don’t like the thought of there being someone in St. Petersburg who might decide to attack and seriously injure you next,” she acknowledged.
Did Izabella’s worry for his welfare mean the affection, perhaps even love, was happening for her?
Or was her concern only for the fact his death would ultimately result in her own?
Only time would tell, but time, unfortunately, was something in short supply for both of them.
“Anything new to report?” Deryk looked enquiringly at his two brothers the following morning as they stood outside in the hallway of the breakfast room where they had just left the Romanov brothers.
Including Vaughn, who had looked a little pale but otherwise showed no other evidence of yesterday’s attack.
Bryn shook his head. “It’s a little like looking for that proverbial needle in a haystack when Vaughn didn’t see who attacked him.”
Deryk frowned. “How is that possible?” Their dragon senses were heightened to a degree Vaughn should have been aware of anyone trying to approach him. Unless… “You mentioned he was on his way to meet with a woman last night?”
Bryn’s mouth twisted derisively. “Yes.”
“Could she possibly be involved?”
“He says not.”