Taming the Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

this world. Nor was she sure she was
ready to hear about how Kaden was from a different world entirely. It was a lot
to wrap her head around in one afternoon.
    Kaden appeared finished with the subject as well. He sliced a
hand through the air. “I will deal with this. Whatever the witch wants of me,
she won’t have it. Nor will the hunters have my head for a prize.” He looked
away. “They have taken enough. I swore I would keep what was left.”
    For an instant, his handsome face was so full of pain that Tess
felt it herself, blowing through her like a storm. She didn’t ask what he
meant—it didn’t feel right, somehow—but she couldn’t shake the sadness that had
come over her at his words. He was just trying to survive, she realized. And he
hadn’t asked for this situation any more than she had.
    Knowing that made his manners, or lack thereof, a little easier
to take. But that still didn’t solve their necklace problem. Or the fact that
there was absolutely no way he was staying here.
    Tess nibbled her lip, trying to decide where to begin. Finally,
she said, “Okay. This is...a lot. Look, Kaden. I don’t know about dragyn-ka or whatever. I don’t know anything about
you. I don’t want you to get killed, but I don’t know how much I can help. I’m
in kind of a tight spot right now.”
    Tess decided that sounded at least slightly less pathetic than
the “no job, no money” truth of it.
    Kaden didn’t appear deterred. He took a step toward her, then
another. Tess stood her ground. She wouldn’t end up backed against another wall,
no matter how much she might have secretly enjoyed it the first time. She had a
feeling Kaden was the kind of man who took a mile for every inch you gave him.
But they were on her territory now, and she wasn’t in the mood to cede
anything.
    The heat coming from the dragon at her neck flowed over her
skin, giving her what felt like a second skin of warmth. Tess tried to think of
it as armor. It bolstered her.
    “Watch it,” she warned him.
    He stopped, but his smirk threatened to take her legs right out
from under her. “I am. I am watching you. Which I will continue to do. Did you
not hear me? I keep what is mine.”
    That word again. “My name is Tess,” she reminded him. “Not mine. And I’m perfectly capable of taking care
of myself, thanks.”
    She was dismayed to find out just how sexy Kaden looked when
disgruntled.
    “You deny me?”
    “Yep.”
    He glowered. “It is an honor to be possessed by a dragon.”
    Tess could only glare at him for a moment. “Says who? Dragons?
The only stories I’ve heard about people and dragons end with one or the other
dead. That doesn’t sound a lot like honor, so no thanks.”
    His eyes began to glow more brightly. “No, there is no honor in
killing a dragon. But I am the last of them, and I assure you, neither of us
will be killing the other.”
    His assertion, that he was the last of his kind, startled her
enough that Kaden moved even closer before she realized it. Then he was just there, big and dark and just inches away from
her. Tess felt her heart flutter in her chest. It wasn’t right for any man to be
so irresistible. And damn it, she could smell him again, a sensual musk that was
all heat and moonlight. When she spoke, the best she could manage was a
whisper.
    “You’re really the only one?”
    “In this world, yes. In my own, most likely. The hunters took
everything. I fought them. I saw fields drenched in—” He seemed to catch himself
then, and there was a flicker of that intense sadness in his eyes again, just
for a moment. “It doesn’t matter,” Kaden said. “I will hide us away. You will
have no more troubles.”
    His complete focus on her was disconcerting. No man had ever
looked at her quite this way. Tess wanted to tell him to take off, that she
could handle it. That she always had. But his nearness was doing things to her,
clouding her thoughts in a way that had nothing to do with magic and