Chapter Six

ARCHER

I'd set my alarm for three am, something I regretted when it sounded in the dark of my room. As I opened the curtains and saw the moon bright in the sky, all regret fled.

Mia had pulled a face when I'd asked if she wanted to come flying over Avebury. I couldn't understand her reticence. I loved the place. It had an undercurrent of something I couldn't identify, which drew me here at least once a year.

Instead, Mia asked me to give a lift to someone she'd met earlier. "He really wants to go but has no way of getting there. You wouldn't mind, would you, Archer? Please?"

"I suppose so." I didn't want a strange dragon in my car, but it was always useful to have another family owe us a favour. Even if that sounded a little like post-fact rationalisation of the way I'd given in to Mia's pleading grey eyes.

"Great!" She sat up, eyes sparkling all of a sudden. "I'll tell Ollie to meet you in the car park at ten past three."

"Ollie Shaw?" I had the distinct feeling I'd been set up, though I couldn't tell why. Was she smitten with him and wanted my approval? Regardless, I'd committed now, and she was tapping away on her phone. "Tell him he's not allowed any food in the car."

She glanced up, eyebrows raised. "Okay."

I moved quietly through the silent hotel, and only realised my assumptions when I reached the locked door closest to the car park. This was no modern hotel with a twenty-four-hour reception. I hoped I'd be able to get out without having to open a fire-door, which would start an alarm and wake up Abimelech Mortimer. Not a good way to make friends and influence dragons.

To my relief, there was only a Yale lock on the door, and it opened easily. The night was cold, my breath making small clouds in the bright moonlight. I glanced around for Ollie Shaw. I'd give him two minutes but no longer. If he didn't have the manners—

"Oh my God, that coat is amazing ."

I'd been concentrating on the building behind me as I listened for him, and he'd come from the gardens. His shoulders were hunched and his hands shoved in the pockets of his puffer jacket, but his expression was awestruck as his eyes drank in my perfectly ordinary greatcoat. He wasn't any less attractive in moonlight, damn him.

"You look frozen," I said.

"Just a bit." He gave a half-laugh. "I came down thirty minutes early because I realised I didn't know which doors would be deadlocked, and when I tried this one, somehow it closed behind me."

"Let's go," I told him, leading the way to my car.

OLLIE

Thank God Archer Talbot hadn't been wearing that coat the first time I saw him. I'd have orgasmed on the spot if he had. It wasn't only the way it swung behind him as he strode but how closely it was moulded to the breadth of his shoulders. How the hell was I supposed to sit beside him in the car without whimpering?

He led the way to a big estate car. I'd assumed he, like Mr Shaw, would drive a high-end car with leather heated seats, and all sorts of tech at the driver's fingertips. This car was unmistakably pragmatic and elderly, and when I climbed in, there was a faint but enduring scent of metal.

There was also another scent . I breathed deeply, drinking in the sort of warmth a body has when the person's just woken up and underneath that something more—Archer smelled so good. My dick appeared to have forgotten it was an unearthly time in the morning and was waking up to greet the day. Shit.

Time to stop sniffing and start talking and hope that would get rid of my growing problem. "Thanks for this," I said. "I haven't got my full licence yet, and Jack didn't want to come because he has to be by his phone in case Lisa needs him—she's pregnant—and there's no way I could ask Mr or Mrs Shaw."

He'd manoeuvred the car easily out of a space that looked too small for even a mini to fit into, and he spared me a quick glance as he put it in gear. "How are you related to them?"

"I think they're my third cousins?" I was hazy about how cousin categorisation worked after first cousins. "I'm simply along for the ride because Jack's wife couldn't come." As soon as I'd blurted it out, I swore to myself. Maybe he'd be more interested in me if he thought I had status in my family. "Jack's next in line to be head of the family and my best friend." Great, that made me sound about five years old. Shit.

He didn't say anything further, but I noticed he put the heater on. It was just beginning to warm the air when he pulled off the road into an empty car park and I looked around in surprise. "We're here already?"

"Be back here by seven," he said, opening his door.

It was only after I'd climbed out that I realised. "I won't have my phone, so how will I—"

"Sunrise is at six thirty-four."

"Oh, okay. Thanks." And it wasn't fair. The impatience in his voice, the competence he had to know that, all of it had me in a helpless puddle on the floor. Not helped as I watched him stride across the tarmac, coat billowing sexily behind him.

Following at a distance, I was easily able to see him in the moonlight on this almost cloudless night. I had to follow him because I had no idea where I was going. I didn't intend to get too close—this might not be his territory, but dragons liked their personal space.

Having trailed him into a field, I began to feel awkward about the fact I was still following him.

"I'm not stalking you, honest. I just don't know where I'm going," I called.

He swung round, his expression discouraging. "The stones are all around us."

"Is it safe to shift just anywhere?"

His breath in was very controlled, as if he were fighting back temper, then he jerked his head. "I'll show you where I usually leave my things. They've never yet been disturbed."

"Thanks." I scrambled after him, only realising as I felt a squelch underfoot that this field had once upon a time contained cows. Well, great. I'd need to clean my shoe before I got back in Archer's car.

The moon disappeared behind a rare cloud as we reached where Archer had been heading for, a huge tree with spreading branches. The night was pitch black under its canopy, and he swiped his phone to flashlight so he could see to place his clothes in a neat pile as he swiftly stripped.

Every single part of me was longing to watch him take his clothes off and drink in the amazing body that he so obviously had, but this was the head of a family, and I was alone in a dark field with him in the middle of the night. If I upset him, I would have more to worry about than just losing my lift home.

I concentrated on damping down my lustful thoughts before I shifted—once in dragon form, my telepathic ability to send thoughts would kick in. Dragons' thoughts could only be heard if they were directly aimed and intended to be heard, but I never trusted that mine wouldn't somehow leak out around the edges.

After undressing, I reluctantly removed the silver cuff from my wrist. The rest of my treasure was kept safely hidden away in my bedroom at home, but I loved having this piece with me wherever I went. My brothers told me I was stupid to run the risk of losing it, but silver was soft enough to close the cuff tightly each time I put it on, so they were wrong—there was no risk. Just as well, since dragons who lost their treasure either died of a broken heart or lost their minds.

I pressed a kiss to the cuff before hiding it amongst my clothes. Stepping out from the shelter of the tree, I shifted as quickly as I could, before the temptation to look at Archer got the better of me. My dragon scented the air, and I'd unfurled my wings, about to fly, when the moon emerged once more.

The breath left my lungs in a rush. Only feet away from me was a twelve-foot-high ancient stone, and something about it… Whether it was the moonlight or whether it was this place, I wasn't sure, but it felt imbued with something otherworldly.

I stood staring at it for what felt like forever. The only thing that brought me back to myself was the sound of wings in the night sky. Once heard, never forgotten. I looked up and he was there, an enormous dragon, black in the moonlight and so beautiful that my heart ached with it.

I launched myself upwards. As always, the first few strokes of my wings were brutally hard, fighting gravity to drag my bulk into the sky from a standing start, but it became easier. When I reached a comfortable height, I was able to snap my wings to create speed and glide in a large circle, swinging out over the stones of Avebury, seeing the pattern the creators of this place had intended, even though some of the stones were missing.

The shadows of the stones cast by moonlight made it look almost as if there were a second henge within the first. They were beautiful, mysterious, and pulled at something deep inside me. I flew around the entire circle and along the lines of stones leading to and away from it. This place had been designed to be seen from above, and I was sure that dragons had made it. I felt it in every beat of my wings, every breath of frigid air. I belonged here.

Lost in beauty and mystery, I'd briefly forgotten him. I saw something big moving over the field beneath me and swerved to get a better look. Too late, I realised it was Archer's shadow I'd seen—I almost crashed into him. He rolled swiftly out of my way, a small blast of fire lighting the sky. He was not amused.

I should have instantly thought an apology to him, but I panicked and headed away, hoping desperately that he'd calm down and would still give me a lift back to the hotel. And that he wouldn't tell Mr Shaw that I'd almost cannoned into the head of a family.

Once I'd got over my near-miss, I looked around as I flew. The countryside was ghostly beneath me, the shades of grey of my dragon's monochromatic sight adding to the moonlight's effect.

Without warning, a huge, grass-covered mound reared up in front of my nose. Standing on one wingtip and flinging myself sideways in an awkward somersault, I somehow avoided smashing into it.

A few inelegant lurches and much beating of wings later, I had my balance back and flew around the hill a few times, intrigued. It was a strange thing—more than a hundred feet tall, with a flat top, standing in a level field.

I looked back towards Avebury. I could see the gigantic dark dragon still flying there, long, graceful sweeps of his wings keeping height with apparent ease. I wanted to explore the countryside further but didn't dare. I didn't know enough about this part of the country. The last thing I needed was to suddenly find myself over a town where any number of people might look up and see me.

I headed back to the tiny village of Avebury, built among the stones, determined to keep out of Archer's way. Hopefully, by the time sunrise came, he'd have forgotten all about my little accident.