Sephie gave a breathless laugh.“I’m still trying to get used to the idea of wings!”She sobered.“You didn’t answer my question of how Edgar Wallis found out about you and your treasure.”
Ranulf appeared completely unconcerned with his own nakedness as he bent to pick up his discarded jeans before pulling them on, but leaving them unfastened as he turned to face her.“You’ve heard us speak of a journal that Belle bought by accident when the contents of a house were auctioned?”
Sephie was having difficulty getting her dry tongue to move so she could answer him after staring at the tautest backside she had ever seen.Or imagine.Ranulf really was a work of art in his own right.
She finally gave up trying and nodded instead of answering.
“The contents of that journal were written by a girl who lived in this village eight hundred years ago,” he answered, seemingly unaware of her inner arousal.
At least Sephie hoped he was.
“It was a much more primitive time then,” Ranulf continued.“She was offered up by the villagers to the dragon gods as a sacrifice to bring forth a good harvest and hunting,” he explained, his top lip curled back as indication of what he thought of such nonsense.“Instead of eating her, as the villagers had intended we should, we flew her to a convent far away in England.Whilst living there, she took holy orders and became Sister Agnes.She later became abbess of the convent.She learned to read and write during her years there.The journal that Belle bought, which was later stolen from her, was written by this nun.”
“I’m guessing it’s the same one in which she wrote of having met three men who had turned into dragons and flown her away from danger,” Sephie said dryly before her eyes widened.“Didn’t Belle initially come to the village as a guest and flatmate of Ben McGregor?The boy who died in a mountaineering accident over the New Year?”
Respect forherintelligence flared in Ranulf’s eyes.“It was no accident, and Ben didn’t fall down the mountain.He stole the journal from Belle to give to Edgar Wallis in exchange for money.”
“Then I’m guessing Wallis had something to do with his death?”
Ranulf released a heavy breath.“He did, yes.He’s also responsible for the death of Zoey’s parents in a plane crash ten years ago.Wallis was already obsessed with searching for the existence of dragons and their treasure, and after Zoey’s parents died, as their lawyer and Zoey’s guardian, he then had access to the money left in trust for her.He used that to send Zoey to boarding school and to buy a mansion on the Cornish coast, which he claimed was Zoey’s main home.No longer having to work left Wallis free to continue his quest for dragon treasure.”
Her eyes were wide.“He’s already killed three people?”It made his threats toward her and her parents yesterday all the more terrifying.
“In horrendous ways,” Ranulf confirmed.“But neither I nor my brothers would ever have allowed him to hurt your parents or you,” he quickly assured her.
Sephie swallowed past her dry throat.“Did you only save us because you had realized I was your mate…?”
“Absolutely not,” he assured without hesitation.“We were not aware that anything was amiss until after Ben died.But once we learned of the situation, we were not about to let anyone else die because of Wallis’s greed.”
Sephie looked at him searchingly.“How did Ben die?Not the official story.I want the truth.”
* * *
Ranulf was so proud of the way his mate had so far listened to and quietly absorbed the information he was giving her, her own questions all relevant and spoken in a calm, reasoned tone.
She was truly magnificent.
Our mate, his dragon purred.
Sephie would make a beautiful and fierce dragon.
Ifshe agreed to become his mate.
Admittedly, she didn’t seem hysterical, outwardly or inwardly, at the things Ranulf had told her.But maybe she was just too shocked to react that way?
“Ranulf?”she prompted abruptly.
He released a shaky breath.“Wallis threw Ben out of the same helicopter he used to arrive here yesterday.Ben’s injuries were severe enough that it appeared as if he had fallen down the mountain.”
Sephie’s face lost all color.No doubt at the horror of knowing how Ben had really died, but also, Ranulf believed, at the realization of the danger her own parents had been in yesterday.
Her jaw tightened.“What will happen to him now?Willyou tell the police about him?”
“What would we tell them?”Ranulf scoffed.“That Wallis believes in the existence of dragons and their treasure and that he’s already killed three people in his search for them?”
Sephie shook her head.“He would be classed as insane and end up in a mental institution.Three meals a day, free heating, and no responsibilities?That’s far too lenient for the things he’s done.”
Relief flooded Ranulf’s chest.“What do you think should happen to him?”
