Chapter 16

Rosemary

I was standing on the porch, wearing paint-splattered coveralls, as I ran my roller up and down the wall. This seemed like an endless task when we’d gotten started a few hours ago, but Char worked like a fiend. I’d done made a dozen square feet, but he’d already reached the corner. Bare-chested, he made quite the picture, dotted with little speckles of paint and sweat gleaming on his tawny skin.

This task hadn’t seemed like much fun, but I was rapidly changing my mind. It was almost too bad that he worked so freaking fast that he’d nearly finished the entire front of the house already. I hadn’t even realized that he’d sanded the outside of the house, and burned paint off in some kind of dragon fashion until he walked me around the house before we got started. He’d prepped everything, working quietly while I’d been sleeping at night.

“I can’t believe how much better this place looks already,” I announced as I stepped back to get a look at our handiwork. We still needed to do the upper floor, but the fresh coat of white paint was giving the entire building a facelift. No longer did this feel like living in a firetrap. It really was starting to feel like home.

Chardum dropped his roller into the tray at his feet to step back and stand next to me. I liked how that felt, the warmth from his shoulder radiating down against my skin. How companionable it was to have him with me, to restore this house with him, instead of all alone.

The sound of a car, the deep, smooth purr of a luxury vehicle, broke the mood. Oh shit, I knew exactly who that was, and I rushed to put my paintbrush away. “That’s not a good sign, Char,” I said. “I think it’s that lady, the vampire.” I leaped from the porch, but he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

“If it is that vampire, she won’t be alone this time. Be careful,” he warned. His fingers glowed hotly against my skin. His presence seemed to wrap around me even though we stood several feet apart, my arm stretching back toward him. When he let me go, it didn’t feel like anything changed. I still felt him so close he had to be touching me, yet he wasn’t. That was the bond he talked about, a bond I was starting to believe was very real.

I was in the middle of the front yard when the expensive black Lexus turned into the drive, dust flinging into the air in an enormous cloud behind it. I braced my hands on my hips and waited, but I made sure they knew they weren’t getting closer. Chardum stood behind me and to my left, to all appearances, just casually waiting, but I knew better. I could see fire simmering in his eyes, and feel a tension in the air, ready to explode.

The car came to a stop a couple of feet away from me, the dark-tinted windows hiding whoever was inside. It seemed like time stretched out; I was holding my breath, waiting for the first door to open. When it did, it wasn’t the leg of a woman that slid from the driver’s side door. A tall man rose from the car, wearing a pin-striped suit that barely covered his huge, bulky frame.

On the other side, the already familiar figure of Sunworld’s representative stepped out. Her pale hair was in her fancy chignon, her expression filled with distaste. She wasn’t in high heels this time, I noticed. She was even wearing a pair of designer jeans over her flat-soled leather shoes.

“Miss Foster,” the man said, tugging on the lapels of his suit jacket to straighten the thing. He made me think of those old-timey mobsters; all he was missing was a fedora to complete the look. I wondered if he was a vampire as well and caught myself staring at his mouth to figure it out. Not that I’d ever noticed so much as a hint of a fang on Elie.

Our visitors both seemed a little more reserved than I expected them to be, and Chardum’s presence was definitely the cause. They hadn’t expected to discover another man here, and they kept glancing over my shoulder at him. “Who are you?” I said, drawing the man’s attention back to me. “And why are you on my land?”

I should probably get one of those no-trespassing signs and put it up at the beginning of the drive to make sure they were properly informed. Heck, I probably really should get that shotgun I had imagined myself with before. This was my land now. I felt that in my bones, I’d settled, connected. It was mine and they couldn’t have it, prison or no prison at the top of the cliff.

The man’s lips pinched tightly together, but he stepped away from the car to approach me. His arms crossed over his massive chest, his eyes glaring into mine. He got so close that our toes were almost touching.

“You declined our offer. You need to reconsider. This is your last chance to sign over the land,” he said darkly. The vampire woman had moved to flank him, and now I discovered that two more men had stepped out of the back of the car. If not for Char standing so close to my side, I would have felt extremely crowded and intimidated.

Those last two goons weren’t even dressed in suits. They made no attempt to look civilized in some fashion. They wore jeans and flannels over their burly frames; all they were missing was a club in their hands to complete their thuggish appearance. So that’s how this was going, was it? They wanted to scare me into giving them access. Char was right. They were after whatever evil creature was locked inside that prison.

“No,” I said, “Now leave.” I crossed my arms and mimicked his towering stance, glaring back as good as I got. His mouth curled into a thin line, and then he glanced over his shoulder at Miss Elie and I realized she’d brought him along as muscle, and she was definitely the boss. When she gave him a nod, he raised a hand so fast I only saw a blur.

One moment, we’d been staring each other down, the next he was moving at lightning speed. But Char moved just as fast, his hand reaching over my shoulder and intercepting the goon. I was only really aware of what had happened when I was staring at clawed and gold-covered fingers gripping the man’s thick wrist right in front of my face.

“I suggest you rethink that action,” Chardum said in a deep, dark voice, edged with a hint of a growl. The man’s muscles strained as he tried to pull his hand from Char’s grip. When he yanked himself free, I wasn’t sure if he’d managed it himself or if my dragon had let him go.

“Oh, is that so? Chardum the Destroyer?” Miss Elie drawled, sounding more cocky than they’d looked when they first got here. “And what are you going to do? There’s only one of you here and four of us.” And what was I? Chopped liver? She acted like I was not important now when it was me they wanted to sign over the rights. If they stooped to intimidation tactics like this, why were they even bothering with legal issues?

That she’d called Char by his full name also told me that she knew exactly what he was, but did they know that I was Zachary’s daughter? I didn’t carry his last name; did they think I was just some random person who’d gotten her hands on this place?

Chardum bared his teeth, a roar rattling from his chest that made me clutch my hands over my ears from how loud it was. “Leave. Four of you are no match against me.” I believed that even if all four of them were vampires. A fire-breathing dragon trumped everything, didn’t it?

The man in the suit took a step back, frowning as he flexed his hands at his sides. But Elie’s expression remained arrogant and angry. “Are you sure you want to test that theory?” she asked, her icy eyes darting to my face with an implied threat. I had enough of it when all three of her brought muscle men lined up and started closing in on me, not Char. Not that I believed for even a heartbeat that my dragon would let me come to harm.

Anger bubbled over inside of me, and I raised my hand to point it at the obnoxious bitch. “We’re sure that you need to fucking leave. Get in your car and drive away, right now.” I swung my hand from the woman to the Lexus with my own little growl. No… wait… That wasn’t me, but there was definitely a deep rumble coming from somewhere.

Everyone cast their eyes about, trying to locate the source, so it wasn’t just me. Then chaos erupted when an enormous boulder came soaring through the air from the left side of the farmhouse, from where the rock slide had been. Sunworld’s reps had to leap out of the way. Chardum snatched me around the waist and covered me with his body on the ground.

Covered by heat and male muscle. For a long moment, I had no idea what was going on. The only view I had was of Char’s chest and a portion of his neck and a long black braid. Then I managed to twist my head to the side and stared in shock.

That giant boulder had flattened the Lexus like a freaking pancake before it had tumbled to a stop conveniently just to the right of the driveway. The vampire and her muscle lay like scattered bowling pins along the dirt. As they scrambled to their feet, Chardum flashed into golden light above me.

They ran, but I barely saw them. They moved that fast. And then I was left pinned protectively beneath the giant paw of my golden dragon.