His Drakon Runaway Bride. Tara Pammi

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СКАЧАТЬ news of Andreas’s coronation and it had prompted her to accept Magnus’s proposal?

      Thee mou, was she willing to destroy Magnus’s life, too?

      Whatever sun had been shining this morning had receded under dark clouds, the weather resonating her own dark thoughts. She had to break it off. Before she hurt Magnus, before...

      The smooth swish of a finely tuned engine broke her focus.

      She looked up and froze, wishing with every cell inside of her that she could truly freeze, become invisible, blend into the gray, leaf-bare trees around her. Could become one of the statues that littered the lovely town.

      The pounding of her heart in her ears said she was far too alive.

      For she recognized the little black-and-gold flag fluttering in the harsh wind on the hood of the European luxury car idling not two steps away. She knew the symbol of the golden dragon with fires spewing out of its wide jaws. She knew the man inside and his body and he knew hers, better than she did her own.

      Legs quaking under her, she stumbled away from the curving stone wall that led to the steps of the church. Wrapped her arm around a tall tree for support.

      Every primal instinct she possessed screamed at her to run, to flee. And yet not a single cell obeyed. Not a single muscle moved even as she heard the click of the car door, even as she saw polished black shoes step out of the car, even as the tall angular form straightened.

      He’d found her.

      Dear God, after ten years, he’d caught up to her. Just as she had always known he would, in the deep dark of the night when she couldn’t hold the memories at bay.

      Crown Prince Andreas Drakos, soon to be King of Drakon, was here.

      A long black coat fluttered around his ankles, wavy hair the color of a raven’s wing carelessly combed away from a high forehead. Power stamped across those high cheekbones, the patrician nose, the thin-lipped mouth. Arrogant entitlement and self-confidence dripped from him with every movement of his body.

      Jet-black eyes, hard and flinty like glittering opals, eyes that reflected nothing back, eyes that had sometimes felt as if there was nothing behind them, swept over her shivering body and came to rest on her face. “Kalimera, Ariana.”

      Their eyes collided and held, sending a tsunami of emotions racing through her body. God, those eyes...she had drowned in them once. She had reveled in making them glow with humor, in making them darken in passion, in trying to break through that opaque shield.

      She pressed her bare hands against the rough bark of the tree, hoping to jerk some kind of self-preservation instinct into life, for some kind of rationality to master the sheer emotional assault she was under.

      Hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers, clad in all black, he looked like a dark angel come to serve swift justice. “It does not seem like a good day to be getting married. Does it, pethi mou?”

      So he knew.

      Ariana licked her dry lips, swallowing away the knowledge that she’d been about to call it off. Her gut instinct had been right. “What...what are you doing here?”

      “Here on this side of the pond, in Colorado, in this little wonderful town that you’ve been hiding in?” He didn’t move, nor did a muscle flicker in his face. In that deep, gravelly voice of his, he could have been inquiring after the bitter weather.

      They could have been a couple of friends discussing trivialities. No anger or emotion fractured his cool expression. Only a faint thread of sarcasm bled through.

      “Or here in front of this beautiful little church on this bleary afternoon where you’re waiting for the man you’re supposed to marry in a few hours? Should I answer the general or the specific?”

      Ariana closed her eyes. Didn’t help one bit. His presence was a hum of power in the air, making something in her vibrate in tune. Dragging cold air deep into her lungs, she flicked her eyes open. Feeling was beginning to come back into her muscles. And along with it memories and an unholy amount of panic.

      How had she forgotten that the smoother Andreas’s voice got, the hotter his rage? The deeper the fracture in his self-control, the colder and calmer his actions? It was his shut-down mode, where neither reason nor begging would filter through. Fresh wind made her eyes water. It had to be the wind. “I don’t have your magic with words, Andreas.”

      He inclined his head in a regal nod. “I am to be King soon. I thought now would be a wise time to take care of the little business between us. After all, you ran out on me without a word, and who knows when you will decide you want to come back to me?”

      Shivers raced down her spine. “Go back to your precious Drakon.” She couldn’t help the bitterness in her voice, even as she cautioned herself against it. “You have nothing to worry about with me. You and I—” her voice caught, and still, nothing changed in his expression “—were an episode from a different life. The media will never catch hold of our little story, neither will I claim even an acquaintance.

      “Ariana Sakis, for all intents and purposes, is dead.”

      She glanced up and her breath seized in her lungs.

      Suddenly, he was there in front of her, blocking everything else from her vision. Blocking the entire world from her. Sandalwood, flared by his body’s heat, taunted her nostrils. Filled her with sensations and memories. Such an interestingly warm scent for a man whose blood was decidedly cold. But then his passion had been just as contrasting to the ruthless lack of his heart.

      “Ariana Drakos,” he corrected with the faintest trace of warning. “Do not forget you belong to me.”

      Nothing so tacky as a raised voice or a teetering temper from the House of Drakos.

      “You might be King of your bloody palace, Andreas—” panic rushed reckless words to her mouth “—but not of me. Magnus will be here any minute and I won’t—”

      “Your fiancé has been made aware of the situation and is not coming.”

      So polite even as he stood there, playing havoc with her life. So infuriatingly calm. Her hands itched to muss up that perfectly placid expression of his. The devil in her burned to unsettle him as he did her. That urge was dangerous. Just being near Andreas was like throwing herself off a cliff—exhilarating and terrifying. And she had stopped doing that to herself a long time ago.

      “What the hell did you tell Magnus?”

      “That he should call it quits while his life is still under his control.”

      “Is this what you have sunk to? Chasing away the man in my life? Have you become as low and manipulative as your father then, Andreas?”

      His jaw tightened. “I didn’t have to chase him, Ariana. Like any sensible man, Magnus seemed uninclined toward being the other party in bigamy. In fact, he sounded angry at your deception.”

      “Bigamy?” She covered the distance between them without caring. Her heart seemed to slow down in her chest, a dreadful cold filling her. “What do you mean, bigamy?”

      His mouth relaxed, he stood waiting against the same tree as if he had all the time in the world. As if СКАЧАТЬ