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  Deeper he went, and his penis stroked a place inside her that made explosions of light in front of her eyes. Then a twinge of pain rushed through her and she gasped in shock.

  His fingers traced the curve of her cheek. “Shh,” he whispered. “Easy. It will hurt, I’m afraid, when I go past your maidenhead. I wish it didn’t, love. But after that it will be very, very good.”

  “No—”

  He thrust. She squealed. She clenched. She tightened. She wanted to back away. But she couldn’t vanish into the mattress. Nor could she push him off.

  Greystone pressed against her, seating himself all the way inside, and he didn’t move. He stayed motionless, and he rained kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. It was hard to feel pain with such glorious kisses stealing her breath. And little by little, the stinging sensation ebbed.

  She whispered, “It’s better... .” Then she saw his expression. He looked like a man in great pain. He looked raw, ravaged, tormented. His eyes were wild. His mouth was a slash, bracketed by harsh lines. He looked as though his control could snap in a heartbeat. “Are you ... all right?” she asked.

  “You are tight, sweet, and perfect, my dear. So no, I am no longer all right.”

  Lucy let her arms slip from his neck, but her legs were still wrapped around him, and his groin, hot and hard, was pressed tight against her. “What should I do?” she whispered.

  “Have a screaming orgasm, Lady Lucy.”

  He circled his hips as he said it, stroking his long shaft within her. Her private place throbbed with need, her body ached with yearning. Amazing she could feel so much. She could feel the stroke of the head, the slide of his rod against incredible, sensitive places. He planted one sweet, sensual kiss after another on her lips, which kept her gaze locked with his.

  Lucy watched a smile touch Greystone’s full, handsome mouth. Then groans deepened the lines framing his lips. His eyes glowed as if they were on fire, and his deep, throaty moans ... she adored them.

  Heavens, she was moving with him. Rising to meet his thrusts. Lifting to bang her pubis to his and take him deep inside. Each slick stroke rubbed the taut head along the sensitive places inside her. And he angled his hips, so each collision of their hips left her little nub tingling.

  She was weak with pleasure, yet driven to rock with him. She clung to him, arching her hips, panting. Her nipples had hardened, and each thrust brushed them against his chest. Her lips tingled from kisses, her nipples throbbed from swift brushes, her quim pulsed ... and fire raged in her, hotter than any she’d ever breathed as a dragon.

  Oh God. The flames burst in her, and she heard wild moaning, and she shouted, “Oh Your Grace! Your Grace!”

  Her cries blended with a harsh masculine groan. She opened her eyes to see his wide with astonishment. His hips banged hard against hers and he shuddered against her.

  Oh. Oh, why hadn’t she thought of this? This was what happened when men found release. She felt hot and wet inside, very wet, but too weak to move. Too weak from pleasure to say anything. She was clinging to him, and her body still rippled and throbbed around him.

  His seed had gone inside her. She might ... she might become pregnant. Why had she not thought of this? The ramifications of what she had done might haunt her forever—

  “My dear Lady Lucy, I’ve never lost control so quickly before.” He kissed her forehead. “I’d intended a much longer bout.”

  She was shaky, now, and her fingers gripped his strong biceps. She stared down, letting his chest fill her vision, for she couldn’t face his eyes right now. Sweat glistened on his straight, wide shoulders and on his smooth chest. His skin was pale, and with his powerful, well-defined muscles, he looked as though he had been carved from marble.

  Still staring below his face, she managed to ask, “Does that mean ... are you pleased?” Pleased enough to rip up vowels? For what she had given up, what she had risked, surely she would achieve her goal.

  “It is an auspicious beginning.” He took a deep breath. “Our fortnight may exhaust me.”

  The duke was still speaking about her staying for fourteen days. Frustration and a sense of failure choked her.

  “But first ...” he murmured huskily.

  He suddenly moved down her body, kissing a trail down her stomach. His lips brushed across her dark nether curls. Then his tongue delved in between her curls to touch her nether lips, to touch her most private place, wet and sticky with her juices and his.

  She squirmed on the bed. He was a rake and he knew the most scandalous things. But his tongue ... the plunges of his hot tongue were different from the thrusts of his shaft and teased her in a different way. She moaned helplessly. The tension built again, swirling inside her... .

  She came again, her fingers stretching wide on the sheets, her legs weak. She sobbed with it. Then a fire seemed to explode inside her and wrap around her heart. Her skin tingled and felt as though it was moving. Changing.

  Goodness, Lucy knew what was happening. She felt this way when she was going to shift into dragon form. When her bones moved and her muscles changed and her skin transformed to iridescent scales.

  It couldn’t happen now. The duke had no idea what she really was. No one in London did. Her family had kept their secret for generations.

  But how did she stop the shift? When that kiss, that one she’d been given years ago, had made her shift, she had run away. She hadn’t been able to stop the change. At least she had found refuge deep in the massive gardens of their hosts’ estate. Her change had happened in a wooded area, where no one could see.

  Heavens, what was she going to do here and now?

  Hades, she was shifting. Sinjin knew it—he had seen people shift from their human shape to dragon form before. Her body was rippling beneath him and her skin felt hot enough to burst into flame.

  “You must let me go,” Lady Lucy cried softly. “I—I don’t feel well. I need to—to use the necessary.” She tried to push out from under him.

  She was trying to hide what she was. She thought he didn’t know she was a dragon.

  It suited him to let her think she had succeeded. He swiftly moved off the bed, then whisked her to her feet. “Behind the screen,” he said.

  “Oh.” Perspiration beaded on her forehead. She had gone white. “I need privacy, Your Grace.”

  “Of course.” He bowed, despite being naked. “Summon the maid when you are ready to dress. This will be enough for tonight. After you are ready, you will return home in an unmarked carriage, then gather your things to return for two weeks.”

  “I—” Her muscles jerked. Sitting up, she hugged her bare chest tightly, as though she was trying to keep her body from flying apart. He read the strain in the face, in the way her muscles shuddered and jerked beneath her hands. Valiantly, she was trying to fight the shift, but it was obvious she couldn’t.

  Sinjin’s nostrils flared as he scented the change in her smell. His entire body tensed, and his brain was hammering one message at him: Do your duty and destroy her when she becomes a dragon. You cannot suffer a dragon to live.

  His hands clenched against his will, yearning to be wrapped around the hilt of a sword. He had vowed to slay dragons—it was not a vow he could walk away from... .

  But he couldn’t hurt Lady Lucy Drake tonight. He had to let her go and wait for her to come back. Once she returned, and had agreed to spend a fortnight under his control, then he would start questioning her about his nephew.

  “I will give you some privacy,” he said casually. He turned his back on her deliberately, for he saw how she was perspiring, and how her jaw was twitching and her muscles were popping under her smooth, satiny skin. He put his back to her as much for himself as for her.

  He left and closed the secret door in the wall paneling. Using his preternatural hearing, he detected a smothered scream. It signaled that her body had changed—when the body transformed from mortal shape into the larger form of a dragon, it caused a great deal of physical pain.

>   Right now, he had a dragon in his house. By the code of his clan, he was obligated to slay her. But that would condemn his nephew to death.

  Sinjin walked away feeling the crushing sensation at his throat. It felt as though his windpipe could collapse. It was the punishment for not doing his duty—but only a warning. It would ease.

  What if Lady Lucy did not return to his house?

  Sinjin stalked over to the dressing table in his bedchamber. A decanter stood on it, beside a large tumbler. Other men drank brandy—he had his servants bring him blood. He poured a glass and the aroma sent his fangs launching forward. He drained all the blood from the glass in an instant while he wondered what Lady Lucy would do.

  She had made love with him when she was frightened of men and intimacy. She was a remarkably strong woman, and determined to protect her family. He knew what lengths a person would go to when their family was at risk.

  Sinjin licked his lips, gathering up the last, tangy droplets of blood with his tongue. It was entertaining to think of the carnal games he would play with her. For he was certain Lady Lucy would come back.

  Changing her shape was agonizing.

  Lucy had sunk to the floor beside the bed and she clutched the bedpost as spasms of pain rocked her body. Why couldn’t she stop it from happening?

  Others could. Her father had been able to, and he had tried to teach her how to do it. Most of the time, she was able to keep her body from transforming, but there had been times, like this instant, where she lost control of her body.

  She closed her eyes, bit her lips to contain any screams or sobs. And just tried to endure the hateful process.

  She didn’t want to be a dragon. She yearned to be normal. To be just a mortal. To have worries like the other human, ordinary young ladies she knew: such as snaring a husband, becoming mistress of a house, and being a grand hostess within the ton.

  She had just given up her virginity and she could even end up pregnant.

  All in all, her life was a disastrous mess.

  Her arms and legs twitched and grew. Her skin rippled, changing by some mystical, awful process into scales. Heat swamped her, and Lucy fell dizzily back against the bed.

  She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t help but scream with the pain as her muscles popped, tore, heated, and re-formed.

  Within minutes, she was no longer human, she was a dragon, and she was curled up on the floor beside the bed, with her tail tucked in around her. Firelight glinted off her scales. She took up the entire room.

  If the duke were to come back, how would she explain this?

  Lucy turned her sleek, dragon’s head toward the secret panel in the wall and gazed at it with her large eyes. A small lick of flame came from her mouth.

  She prayed the panel did not open.

  4

  Lies and Vows

  “What are you doing, Lucy? Why are you packing?”

  Lucy whirled to find Helena standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Her sister was tearing at a piece of embroidery, nervously shredding it. With her pale gold hair and enormous blue eyes, Helena was a beauty, and at nineteen, she was also old enough to understand what their brother’s stupid gambling had done to the family. In fact, Helena understood all too well—Lucy knew her lovely sister was noble enough to agree to a wretched marriage to save them all.

  Lucy let the blue silk gown in her arms fall into her open trunk. She was still shaking. It had been draining to face her fear and painful memories and go to bed with the duke. It had stunned her to actually like it. She’d been wild with terror when she’d started to shift into dragon form.

  It had been a miracle she hadn’t been caught. At least she had been alone in his bedroom when she had shifted shape, but as a dragon, her head had brushed the high ceiling and her tail had been curled and pressing against the wall. Then she’d managed to regain control of her body and change back. Trembling, exhausted, disheveled, and itchy with dried perspiration, she had summoned his maid, dressed, and come home.

  In her carriage, she had concocted a story. Now she faced the elder of her two sisters and used it. “I have an invitation to a house party.”

  Helena frowned. “Lucy, it is the beginning to the Season. Who on earth would be having a house party? Everyone is in London.”

  “Not all the Drakes,” she said, amazed at how smoothly she was able to lie. “Since we can’t shop for our prospective husbands on the marriage mart, many of the dragon clans do not bother to attend Society events. There will be eligible men in this house party, Helena. Drago men. Men who are dragons, like we are. If I can snare one and marry well, then I can rescue us.”

  Helena crossed her arms, sighed heavily. Lucy flinched as her sister’s perceptive gaze searched her face. She tried to give no hint that all this was a complete fabrication.

  “Lucy,” Helena said. “You said you would never think of marrying—”

  “I am ready to marry now,” Lucy broke in. “I’ve recovered from Allan Ferrars.” She went to her wardrobe so Helena could not see her face. The more impassive and natural she tried to make her expression appear, the more Lucy was certain she wore an enormous sign on her head that read LIAR.

  “Are you certain?” Helena came over to her, and touched her arm. Doubt furrowed her sister’s smooth, pretty forehead. Helena knew her far too well.

  Bother. Lucy had never lied to any member of her family before... .

  Well, that was not true. Neither of her two sisters knew exactly what Ferrars had done or what she had seen when she had yanked open the bedroom door. They did not know he had battled with Jack and that their brother had been forced to kill him. Not telling them why had not been a direct falsehood. It had more been a lie by omission.

  She didn’t want Helena to know what she was doing. And anyway, she had no choice now: She had already done it. She had given up her virginity, and she certainly couldn’t retrieve it. The problem—losing her virginity made her feel different. She felt more world-wise and experienced, older, and more ... more aware of everything around her. The lavender sprinkled on her underclothes smelled more sweet and intense, like a field of wildflowers. She was aware of the touch of things—the caress of her muslin petticoats as they brushed her thighs. The tug of her garters on the sensitive skin of her legs. The way her bodice bound her breasts. And since she felt so ... different, she was afraid someone who knew her well would guess what she had done.

  “It’s not just to save us,” she said firmly. “I want to marry. I know Father would have wanted it, and I can’t live with myself for disappointing him.”

  She hated herself in that moment. Using their father’s wishes to convince her sister.

  As she expected, Helena’s eyes teared. But to Lucy’s surprise, Helena vehemently shook her head. “Father would not have forced you to do something you didn’t want. He truly thought Mr. Ferrars was a gentleman and a noble dragon. Father would not want you to marry if you didn’t wish to.”

  “I know. I’m going to open my heart and fall in love, Helly. I promise. I know wonderful gentlemen will be at this party and one will sweep me off my feet.” The lie was so very much the opposite of what was going to happen that her throat felt thick.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A fortnight.”

  Helena’s eyes widened. “With Jack missing?”

  “Creadmore will look after both you and Beatrix.” Creadmore was loyal—he had been Father’s butler for twenty years. He would ensure the family was safe. But Helena’s ingenuous question reminded Lucy that she could not look for Jack for the two wretched weeks she had to spend with the duke. “I will write every day, Helena,” she promised impulsively. “I’ll send letters by footman or by the express.” Which would save her from having to explain a London postmark.

  She was weaving a tangled mess.

  But in two weeks, the debt would be paid. They would be safe. Then she could find Jack, and she would give him a kick in the breeches for all the trouble he’d caus
ed.

  As for her ruination and possible pregnancy ... she wouldn’t think of that now. She would give Jack an extra kick in his behind if she was expecting a child.

  At least, she was certain Jack was alive and safe. He always ran away when he got into trouble. It had driven Father mad. Now it was going to do the same to her.

  Late in the night, but before dawn began to touch the sky, he walked to his sister’s grave.

  Sinjin flicked up the collar of his greatcoat and stalked through the cemetery, toward the massive crypt that held his sister’s coffin. He carried a bouquet of roses.

  He had lost all his family except Emma when he had been nine years of age. The dragon slayers had found him, had taken him in and raised him. With his father dead, he had become the Duke of Greystone. But the only title that had mattered to him had been that of dragon slayer. Wreaking vengeance on dragons had helped him survive the pain of losing his parents, his younger brother, and his other two sisters.

  Emma had never been able to heal. She’d always been lost in a sort of make-believe world. She had believed she had fairies for friends, and she would not even speak to anyone but him.

  Emma had been made into a vampire by the dragon slayers, just as he had been. When she was as old as he was, when he had been turned, he had insisted she be given immortal life.

  All members of the dragon slayers clan were given immortality. Their souls were taken and their bodies were made stronger by the transformation. As vampires, they were almost invincible. Emma should have lived for eternity. But Emma had fallen in love with a forbidden man—a dragon. She had run away with him. Other dragon slayers had hunted the man down and destroyed him. After she had lost her husband, Emma had gone mad. She had destroyed herself. She had walked out into the sunlight, had screamed with agony as the light burned her to ashes and dust.