Dragon's Promise. Denise Lynn

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СКАЧАТЬ called while he was still debating whether to come home or not. Which explains why he had never received word that she’d called. However, he’d returned to the Lair shortly after that, so why hadn’t his aunt mentioned the calls?

      That was something he’d take up with Danielle later.

      “I’m sorry. I wasn’t living here then.”

      “Ah.”

      He was taken aback by the shortness of her answer. “I am not engaged.”

      She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “That doesn’t matter.”

      “What did you—”

      She turned to face him, throwing up her hands to stop him from talking. She screamed in frustration and then nearly shouted, “Our son has been kidnapped!”

      The beast reared back and growled with enough force to send him stumbling backward. The growl turned menacing as it vibrated inside his chest. Between that unexplained bout of temper and the sudden roaring in his ears, he wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly. After taking a deep breath and shaking his head, he asked, “Our what?”

      “Son. Our son.”

      “That isn’t possible.”

      “Yes,” she shot back. “It is possible.” She covered her face with a shaking hand for a second before adding, “I don’t have the time, nor the inclination, for this.”

      He repeated, “It’s not possible.” He would have known. The beast should have known. This woman had been marked as its mate, why hadn’t the beast known, or at least sensed this had happened?

      “Damn it!” she yelled. “Do you think I sleep with so many men that I don’t know who the father of my child is?”

      “No.” His mind swirled with an effort to make sense of this. First, however, he needed to defuse her anger before she managed to give the beast a reason to be uncontrollably enraged. “That isn’t what I meant. Calm down. Give me a minute to—”

      “Would you like a calculator?” She jerked her purse from her shoulder, rummaged inside and slapped her smartphone against his chest. “Here. We were together a little over a year ago. He’s three months old. You do the math.”

      Sean cursed and pushed the phone aside. “I assumed you were on the pill.”

      Not only was it lame, it was the flimsiest excuse he’d ever used. Especially since he knew what her response would be.

      “Oh, of course you did. And I suppose you also assumed that human birth control pills would somehow be effective?”

      He closed his eyes at the expected reply. He’d never had to worry about any type of danger inherent with spur-of-the-moment sex, since his beast had the uncanny ability to sense when something wasn’t quite right and would steer him away from the encounter. As for birth control—his brothers had assured him that it was a nonissue since he could only impregnate his...mate.

      Sean wanted to kick himself. Once they’d walked into her bedroom he’d been so wrapped up in lust, need, desire and her that he’d never given a second thought to the fact his dragon had marked this female at the bar. How had he let himself get so out of touch with reality? It wasn’t as if he could blame the alcohol—he’d only had two beers. Regardless, intoxication wasn’t an acceptable excuse for anything. Especially not for this.

      Caitlin dropped the phone back inside her purse, and then she grasped the lapels of his suit jacket. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. I know he’s your son, and he’s in danger.”

      Sean looked down at her as he willed the snarling dragon to calm down enough for him to think. “I never said I didn’t believe you.”

      “He’s just a baby.” Tears welled in her eyes. Her chin quivered. “Please, help me.”

      He could hear the beast’s roar in his ears, saw it thrash back and forth in his mind. The dragon was feeling trapped and angry, but the woman in front of him was afraid and worried. His beast would soon get over its hissy fit. However, Caitlin couldn’t be expected to do the same. He stroked her cheek and brushed away a falling tear. “Yes. Of course I will.”

      She fell against his chest with a cry. “Thank you.”

      Ignoring a sudden bout of heartburn caused by the dragon’s displeasure with this entire situation, Sean restarted the elevator and then, against his better judgment, he wrapped his arms around her. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get him back safely. Have the kidnappers asked for a ransom?”

      She nodded against his chest.

      “That’s good. Money isn’t an obstacle.”

      “The ransom isn’t money.”

      The kidnapper didn’t want money? Then what was the demand? “So you’ve talked to the kidnapper?”

      The elevator doors whooshed open, and Caitlin stepped out of his embrace. She shrugged one shoulder and then said, “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

      Sean frowned at her elusive answer. “My suite is right around the corner. We can talk there.”

      He escorted her down the hallway in silence. Once inside his apartment suite, Sean crossed the living room to open the sliding door to the balcony. A blast of cool, late-autumn air flowed into the suite. He breathed in deeply, hoping the crispness of the air would help to quell the uneasiness in his chest.

      Stepping away from the door, he motioned Caitlin toward the sofa. “Would you like something to drink?”

      She shook her head as she settled into a corner of the couch.

      Instead of taking a seat himself, he perched on the arm of the chair across the room from her. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

      “The day before yesterday, something broke into my room while I was napping.”

      “Something?”

      “Yeah—something.” She shrugged. “At first I thought it might be you, until the icy evilness of it washed over me, taking away my breath.”

      As far as he knew, that type of evilness could belong to only one being. A sickening feeling in the pit of Sean’s stomach formed, growing with each passing word of her explanation.

      “It was as if it knew I’d realized the thing’s vile intent, because it conjured a spell that threw me against a wall and pinned me there until it exited with our son in tow.”

      “Can you describe it?”

      “At first it was wispy with no real identifiable form.”

      That explained why she’d thought it might be him. His dragon form was little more than smoke unless he—or the Dragon Lord—willed it into something more solid.

      “And when it started to take shape, it was like a beast from a nightmare.” Her lip quivered, but she quickly turned her head away as she continued, “A monster has our son.”

      Sean’s СКАЧАТЬ