Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(23)

It had to be at least 1:30 in the morning, and the ordeal was still unfolding.

No, no, no!

He was coming back down the hall, heading her way, moving like a lithe, stealthy jaguar—in boots and pajamas—approaching the sofa once more. Maybe he would just pass through the living room, saunter out the door, and she could crawl back through the rabbit hole she’d fallen into and get back to her ordinary life.

“How are you?” he asked. “Are you feeling any better?” His voice sounded like ground-up shards of glass trundled in a roll of sandpaper: rough, raspy, and way too domineering for her liking.

She sucked in a harsh breath of air, straightened her spine, and clenched her fists. Even if she wasn’t feeling brave, she could always fake it. She would rather go down fighting. “How am I feeling?” she snarled, watching as he sauntered to the couch, stopped a couple feet shy of her perch, and squatted down in front of her, his massive shoulders blocking her view of anything—but him: his broad, husky shoulders, his rock-hard chest, and his acutely defined biceps bulging at his sides.

God, give her strength.

“No,” she added, irritably. “I’m not okay. And why are you wearing pajamas with boots? What kind of a…dragon monster…does that?”

His mouth curved upward in a sly, quirky smile, and she almost came unglued. This wasn’t funny. Yes, her question was asinine at best—in fact, she sounded moderately unhinged. And yes, her nervous energy was taking its toll, but still, it was a valid and somewhat reasonable question. “Answer me,” she prodded, trying to sound more brave than she felt.

He looked down at his white Haines T-shirt, his black silk pajamas, and his heavy, steel-toed boots, the former being items he had washed while he’d showered, and he grimaced. “I got into a little trouble earlier, and I had to borrow some clothes. The boots are mine.”

“Trouble?” she pressed. “What kind of trouble?”

He cocked one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “The kind that’s been taken care of, the kind that will never breathe again.”

“Oh.” An awkward silence passed between them, and then Jordan breached an even scarier subject: “And the man who attacked me, the guy in the apartment…you aren’t going to ask me who he was…why he was here? You aren’t even curious?”

Zane’s shoulders stiffened, and he closed his eyes—but when he blinked them back open, he looked perfectly calm. “No, not really,” he muttered. “The way I see it, the whys don’t matter. That problem is solved, is it not?”

Jordan swallowed her antagonism and froze.

She might be two cans shy of a six-pack, but she had just sobered up, real fast. This guy was not someone to toy with. She relaxed her fists and nodded, curling her shoulders inward. “Yes, I would say that it is.”

He hung his head, and that thick curtain of dark brown locks fell into his face, framing his angular features. Then he raised his chin and held her gaze, but he didn’t utter a word.

Jordan shifted nervously on the sofa, praying she hadn’t ticked him off. She wet her lips in a fearful gesture and unwittingly cleared her throat. “Yesterday, in the parking garage, what happened?” This time, her tone emitted more respect. “I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. And tonight, while you were cleaning…the mess…while you were showering, I kept trying to get off the couch. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. What did you do to me? And how did you do it?”

Zane brushed his hand through his hair, ostensibly to sweep it away from his eyes, but once again, he didn’t speak. He just searched her gaze with lethal, unsettling intensity.

Jordan shuddered, her stomach roiling in uneasy waves. “How did you find me?”

He swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, drawing her attention to the dense, muscular cords along his throat, his smooth, flawless skin, and that rich, unidentifiable complexion, the faintest golden-brown. “What…what’s your ethnicity?” It was ridiculous question number two, especially when one considered the situation, but since he refused to answer anything serious, it seemed like a safe-enough probe. In truth, she wanted to keep him talking about anything that didn’t include murder or killing or beheading.

The corner of his mouth quirked up in another half-smile. “Dragyr.”

A single word.

That foreign, cryptic term…again.

“My ethnicity is Dragyr.”

“Right,” she whispered. “You’re a dragon: I forgot.” She didn’t forget—how could she?—but she was so rattled by his proximity, and she was growing increasingly angry…again.

“Not dragon, angel. Dragyr…or dragyri.” He extended his right arm toward the couch, palm facing up, and Jordan flinched at the sudden movement.

“Shit!” she exclaimed beneath her breath, and then she immediately exhaled, relieved that he hadn’t flown off the handle and smacked her.

He frowned, as if he’d read her thoughts, and then he gestured at her fingers with his chin. “Give me your hand,” he whispered.

Jordan shook her head. “No.”

“Angel,” he drawled, “give me your hand.”

She shook her head again. “Why?”

“I want to show you something, put this subject to rest.”