Dragos Takes a Holiday (Elder Races #6.5)(8)

Nope. Her internal radar felt quite serene today. The others would have gotten a deal they couldn’t refuse, and Dragos got to take a much-needed break. Plus, beach! The water looked so lovely.

Dragos continued. “We’ve got the house for up to a week if we want it. The manager of the property will stock the fridge with plenty of food and drinks, and is setting up a crib for the length of our stay. We don’t have to do anything when we arrive. We can just relax and do whatever we want.”

Absorbed in looking at the photos, she said, “What I want to know is, why don’t we have a private island?”

She had meant to be facetious, but Dragos’s expression turned thoughtful. “Good question. I’ll have to look into that.”

Her head snapped up, and she stared at him with wide eyes. He gave her a completely serious look in return. Wordless, she faced forward.

Hugh’s shoulders shook, and Eva snickered into her hand.

Dragos gently eased his phone out of her lax hands. She watched him sidelong as he turned it off.

***

The flight was short, just over two hours long. Eva and Hugh sat at the front of the cabin, talking and playing chess. Dragos and Pia settled with Liam on one of the two couches toward the back of the plane.

Toward the end of the flight, Pia watched out a window. Her excitement surged again as land came into view in the limitless expanse of blue water. Liam woke up as the plane started to descend. The change in altitude didn’t seem to affect him at all. The baby dragon joined her in staring out the window.

Pia divided her attention between the scenery outside and studying her son’s triangular head with the slender, graceful snout. He was perfectly formed, with every detail that Dragos’s dragon form had, only in miniature.

She might have given birth to him, but he was such a mystery to her. His midnight-dark, violet, jewel-like eyes had gone wide with fascination. As a raptor, he probably already had the capacity to see minute details a mile or two away, but she wondered what he really comprehended of the scenery spread out below them. Right now the lines of his body were delicate rather than powerful, but if Dragos was right and Liam did reach his father’s size, he would be a juggernaut.

The magic in him burned fiercely. While Liam’s Wyr form was a dragon, her blood ran in his veins as much as his father’s did. Liam’s Power felt cooler to her than the molten corona of Power that boiled out of Dragos. How would that combination manifest in Liam’s talents and abilities? All they knew at this point was that he had some of her ability to heal, for he had saved her life before he had ever been born.

She pressed her lips to the top of his head and whispered telepathically, I love you.

He closed his eyes and leaned against her cheek with a sigh.

“Come here, little man.” Dragos held his hands out to Liam.

Liam’s body tightened in protest around Pia’s neck. She patted his leg while she bit back a smile. As much as he loved his father, at this stage in his young life he was definitely a mama’s boy.

When Dragos spoke again, his dark, rich voice was soothing. “I will give you back to your mother soon enough. For now you must come to me.”

While he talked to his son in a low murmur, Liam’s body relaxed and his sharp, slender talons slipped out of her T-shirt. He offered no protest when Dragos gathered him up in gentle hands.

Pia stuck fingers in the new holes in her shirt. She muttered, “If this keeps up, I’m going to need a new wardrobe.”

She watched Dragos cradle Liam against his chest. As the small, white dragon looked up, Dragos bent his dark head and whispered in Liam’s ear for several minutes. Liam rested his head on Dragos’s chest as he listened. She couldn’t make out specific words, but she felt the effect of Dragos’s words in snatches. Reassurance, praise and encouragement radiated from him.

The sight of father and son together never failed to affect her. Dragos was the most lethal and efficient fighter she had ever seen. He had a killing speed along with his immense size, and he had once pulled the crumpled metal of a wrecked car away from her body.

As Dragos held Liam, his hands seemed even more massive on the baby’s small body. He had positioned his long, powerful fingers with utmost care at the base of the lacy wings.

The small dragon’s body shimmered and changed, and the baby Dragos cradled against his chest had turned human again.

Pia’s sigh of relief mingled with a sense of awe. Her father had been human, and she had only learned how to shapeshift into her Wyr form the previous year. Even then she had needed Dragos’s help. It had taken Liam less than four months.

Dragos patted Liam’s round, diapered bottom. “Well done. Now that you’ve learned how to shapeshift, you can change back again whenever you need to.” He lifted his head and handed the baby back to her.

As she took Liam, she whispered to Dragos, “You win all the good Daddy points.”

His eyes glinted with wicked sensuality, and his eyelids lowered to conceal it. Ever the opportunist, he murmured, “And what will that get me?”

“If you play your cards right, it might get you lucky later.”

He traced the line of her jaw with his forefinger. “How about if I throw in dinner by the ocean?”

It was a good thing they were both sitting, because that slight caress made her go weak at the knees.

As their gazes connected, all the light banter fell away, leaving something pure and naked, a shock of connection that reverberated through both mind and body. As she stared into his intent gold eyes, the rest of the world fell away. She was caught in a beguilement that would never end, and she would go anywhere with him, do anything for him. She loved him so much, she couldn’t breathe.