He couldn’t help but think the fog was a good metaphor for where he was at the moment. For the first time in his life, he was staring at a blank page without the benefit of imagining what the future might bring when he brought pencil to paper.
Everything was new. New world. New, intense feelings for a woman whose possible indifference could not be overestimated. New relationship with his brothers. No longer was he forced to act the younger brother, the follower, the quiet obedient one. He could be anything. He could be himself, whoever that was.
Today he was a dragon on high alert for a wendigo. Had it waited outside the tavern last night? Was it following them? The forest was alive with birds and tiny animals that skittered beneath the thick white cloud that clung to everything. He feared the wendigo would be upon them before anyone noticed its presence. Considering he hadn’t told his brothers about the creature, it was possible, even if they did notice, they wouldn’t register the danger immediately.
Telling them, however, wasn’t an option. If they discovered she was a Midew and that a supernatural monster wanted her dead, they might choose to abandon her. Gabriel had made a point of avoiding human drama and violence. It was too tempting to reveal what they were under such circumstances.
Maiara led the way beyond the last tavern onto narrow trails that weaved between the trees. Now it made sense why everything they’d brought with them had to fit on horseback—in the saddlebags, the large bedroll on the back of the saddle, or the packhorse. There was no room for a cart on these narrow trails. There was barely room for the broad shoulders of his brothers.
Fog or not, he couldn’t miss the trembling of Maiara’s fingers. He rode close to her, Gabriel and Tobias falling to the rear. Even though she was covered in fur, he longed to pull her into his arms and protect her from both the cold and the monster that hunted her.
At first Maiara stopped to break every few hours until it was clear Alexander and his siblings did not share the fragile compositions of human travelers. After that, she picked up the pace, her hawk following in the sky above them, and rode into the mist until it turned into a cold rain and soaked them through. She only stopped when the horses needed water.
The trail ran along the side of a mountain, the rain gathering in a waterfall that pooled at the base. The horses dipped their heads and drank greedily, but Maiara seemed distracted by something in the woods. Alexander noticed the hawk circling silently above the same spot that drew her attention.
In one fluid motion, she drew her bow from her back and nocked an arrow. Was the wendigo here? Alexander readied himself for the worst. His wings punched from his back and talons extended from his knuckles.
But when her arrow flew, it did not target the wendigo. Instead, a few yards into the woods, it protruded from the body of a hare. Her marksmanship awed Alexander, who noticed she’d pierced the creature through the eye, killing it instantly. She lifted it from the shaggy underbrush and held it proudly above her head.
“Wiyas,” she said. “To eat.” She motioned toward the sticks and branches that riddled the ground. “We will make fire.”
“Alexander,” Gabriel growled.
His desire to protect Maiara had superseded any ruse of keeping what he was a secret from her. There, in full daylight, he stood before Maiara and his brothers, wings stretched and talon’s out. Gabriel’s expression was nothing short of livid. Tobias’s jaw dropped, his eyes narrowing as if he couldn’t quite believe Alexander’s stupidity.
“She knows,” Alexander admitted, squeezing his eyes shut for a long blink.
“You told her?” Tobias’s accusing stare might as well have branded him a traitor.
Maiara drew her knife and gutted the rabbit in the practiced way of an accomplished hunter. She grunted at Gabriel and gestured at him with the bloody blade. “Humans do not begin journeys at the mouth of winter. Humans do not say they cannot freeze to death or starve to death. You are dra-gon.” She skinned her kill. “I have eyes and ears. Do not blame Alexander.”
Alexander swelled with affection for her. It was true he’d broken his promise to his brother and told her what he was, but he did not regret it. They needed her and she needed them. If he had any influence at all, this was how it would be.
“We won’t hurt you,” Tobias reassured.
Maiara’s dark brows crowded together on her forehead, and she started to laugh. “I am not afraid of you, dra-gon.” She raised the bloody knife between them once more. “But I think the time for hiding is done.”
She pointed to an opening in the side of the mountain. “We camp here. Others use this place. One of you must check that it is empty and for dry wood inside for cooking. We need fire.”
Alexander retracted his wings and claws. “We have fire.”
Tobias glanced between Alexander and Gabriel. “One of us will need to hunt. We are going to need more than one rabbit.”
Alexander removed his coat. “I will hunt. You start the fire.”
“And I will check the cave,” Gabriel said. Something about the way he said it made Alexander believe he’d be quite happy to find a bear to wrestle within its depths. He was still furious with him.
“A nice young stag sounds delicious,” Tobias called to him before following Gabriel.
“You’ll get what you get,” Alexander muttered toward their backs. His gaze fell on Maiara. “I have to… change… to hunt.”
She paused what she was doing long enough to shrug.
Moving for the cover of an outcropping of stone away from the horses as not to spook them, Alexander undressed, doubled over, and dug his claws into the ground. He allowed the transformation to take hold, his forearms shingling with turquoise-blue scales, his spine stretching into a tail. When it was done, he moved out from the shelter and, as silently as possible, slipped toward the woods.
Maiara’s head snapped up and her mouth gaped. The skinned rabbit dropped from her hand.
As he’d feared. A sketch of a dragon on a page was nothing compared to seeing one in person. This could change everything.
Gently, as gently as he could in this form, he lowered his head and nudged her shoulder with his nose, the shoulder where he knew the wendigo’s scar marred her flesh under her tunic. A reminder, he hoped, that they were different but the same. Both creatures of magic.
Each heartbeat seemed to echo in the quiet of her perusal. He held absolutely still. Could she accept what he was, or was seeing his dragon in the flesh too much for her human mind to handle? But her hand rose and stroked his cheek. Secure in that reassuring touch, he backed away, spread his wings, and started to hunt.
Later when his kill—he had found a young stag after all—was roasting over the fire, Maiara chose to sit beside him near its warmth. At first she stared at the fire in silence. Who needed to speak when Tobias and Gabriel chatted on about the differences between a Paragonian forest and those of this realm? Besides, Alexander had never been the chatty sort, preferring to express himself with his art rather than his words. He picked up his sketchbook and started drawing Maiara while he waited to eat.
“You are beautiful as a drag-on,” she said softly.
He paused his pencil. The light of the fire cast shadows along her face and neck. How he’d love to trace that long, smooth trail from her ear to her shoulder with his fingers, feel the hollow of her throat, the soft curves that no doubt led to her navel. The fire had raised the temperature in the cave, and her skin glistened in a way he knew he’d never fully capture in his sketches.
“You weren’t afraid?” he asked.
“At first.” She looked down at the cave floor. “Then I saw you inside.” She pointed to her eyes. “It is still you, through the eyes.”
He nodded. That was one way to think of it.
“Your brother started this fire with his breath,” she said, her brow crinkling as if the memory disturbed her.
“That explains the smell.” There was a moment’s hesitation before she laughed.
“You h
ave fire inside. You truly cannot burn.” The playful curiosity on her face was irresistible. He reached down and removed his boot and sock and rolled up his pant leg. While she watched in obvious horror, he extended his bare foot until it rested on the burning logs. Beside him, she inhaled sharply. After several breaths, she began to squirm until she had to cover her eyes. Eventually her hand shot out and landed on his forearm.
“It doesn’t hurt me,” he reassured her.
She tightened her grip and laughed nervously. “It hurts me.”
He pulled his foot out of the fire. To his disappointment, her fingers trailed from his arm.
“You are a good shot with that bow.” He rolled down his pants and reached for his sock.
“I learned to hunt as a child.”
“Is that common among your people?” In Paragon, only elves hunted with bows and arrows. And while they did learn as children, the weapon was used for self-defense rather than hunting in most cases. Only a select few of their kind actually hunted for meat.
“In many tribes, women do not do the hunting. It is left to the men. The women take care of the home. But my father insisted that I learn.”
Interesting. Every time he thought he understood humans, he turned out to be wrong. “You said your father was an English trapper. Did your people accept that he wanted you to be different?”
She sighed. “I was always different. My father loved my mother, but he did not live with us. Their spirits were not joined.” She held two fingers together. “Not… married.”
“Is that difficult for a child in your culture?”
“It was allowed because my mother was a Midew. Otherwise she would have been pressured to marry and raise me with a warrior of our tribe.”
“All the women who are not healers must marry?”
“It is considered rude for a woman to turn away too many warriors. It is not a law, only an expectation.”
“Where I come from, there are fewer women of our species than men. It is unheard of for women not to marry, usually at a young age. I understand what you mean about societal expectations.”
The fire danced in her dark eyes. “My father came to our village several times every year and would stay with us, and then when I was old enough, before I’d become a woman, he started taking me with him on his expeditions. He taught me to hunt, to trap, and to speak English.”
Alexander stared into the fire. “It sounds like he loved you very much.”
“He did. And I loved him. He believed in my magic even though he had different gods.”
Alexander thought he would have liked Maiara’s father. “I do not have so many memories of my father, and few of them are pleasant.”
She frowned. “What was it like when you were a child?”
He leaned back on his elbows, wondering if he could distract her by putting his foot back in the fire. But in the end, he answered her with a story that summed up his childhood.
“From the time we can walk, dragon boys are taken to fighting rings called pits. Because my mother was the queen of our kingdom, I went to a special pit where I trained with my brothers only.”
She placed a hand on his arm as if she wasn’t sure she’d understood him correctly. “Your mother was queen? You are prince?”
“Yes, but not anymore. We were exiled during a coup that overthrew our kingdom.”
“I am sorry.”
He couldn’t interpret the tightness that gathered at the corners of her eyes and mouth, but he continued.
“Girls don’t train in the pits, but nearly all of them learn to fight on their own. Parents recognize that they, of any of us, need to know how to defend themselves, but the training is all done in private and no parent would ever admit it.”
“It is secret?”
“Secret.”
“But not for the boys.”
“No. For the boys it is very public. And for boys of noble birth, it is nothing short of torture.” Alexander looked across the fire to where his brothers were still laughing, telling stories, and paying him and Maiara no attention. He leaned his head closer to hers. “The eldest brothers receive all the training, but the younger of us are made to fight. So being the third in line for the throne, and a boy with a soul for art rather than war, I spent a lot of time on my back in the dirt or on a training mat. And it was all publicized. My failure was used to make Gabriel and my brother Marius look stronger to our people.” He frowned at the humiliating memory.
“Is this why you fear Gabriel?”
He did a double take. “Why do you think I fear Gabriel?”
Her eyes flicked across the fire. “You hesitate to speak to him. You often follow behind. Even now, you lower your voice as if you fear displeasing him.”
An undesirable truth. He hated that she was right. He kept his eyes trained on the fire, the weight of her stare heavy on his cheek.
She nudged his elbow. “No pit here. No reason to be afraid.” When he looked at her, her brows lifted and he returned her smile.
“Right. You’re right about that.” The smile faded from his mouth as a thought crossed his mind. “Maiara, do you have a mate among your people?” He held his fingers together as she had when describing her parents.
Her eyes narrowed as if she was struggling with a word.
“A husband? A lover? Someone who is courting you?” he clarified.
She shook her head. “No. Among my people, I spent much time developing my skills as a Midew like my mother. I had no time for… marriage games.”
Marriage games. He’d cared little for those in Paragon as well.
“Do you have a… mate where you are from?” she asked.
“No,” he scoffed. “In Paragon, my family did not play… marriage games often. And when we did, it was for political reasons.”
Her dark brows became two slashes over her obsidian eyes. “Paragon is the name of your land.”
He stared into the fire, an old sadness bleeding into his disposition. “It’s not my land. Not anymore.”
This she seemed to understand to the depths of her soul. Staring straight into the fire, she slid her hand down his arm and threaded her fingers into his. No further words were spoken. None were needed.
Chapter Seventeen
2018
Sedona, Arizona
Rowan stood and stretched, cracking her neck. The emotional toll of Alexander’s storytelling was bleeding over onto her. She remembered the pits and what it had been like to reveal her true form to Nick for the first time. While she knew this was helping Alexander, she needed a break and was pleased that he’d paused where he did.
“Can I interest either of you in a drink?” Alexander asked.
“Yes,” Rowan said quickly.
Alexander moved into the kitchen. “I have some tequila and mix. How does a margarita on the rocks sound? I don’t have a blender out here.”
“Heavenly.” Rowan looked at Nick. “Honey?”
“Beer?” Nick asked.
Alexander hooked a Dos Equis from the fridge and slid it across the counter to him.
The sun was setting outside the cave, and the view of Sedona with its bluebell-colored sky and rusty red terrain was postcard perfect. Rowan wished she could fully enjoy it, but she was distracted by the way Nick studied Alexander as if his detective background was kicking into gear again. She nudged him and raised an eyebrow.
“Uh, the way you ended that story, it almost sounded like Maiara didn’t have a home, but weren’t you headed to be with and defend her people?” he asked.
Rowan rubbed her temples. Guess they weren’t taking a break after all.
Alexander stared out the mouth of the cave at the setting sun as he squeezed a lime into Rowan’s drink. “Both her parents had been killed by the wendigo as well as the rest of her Midewiwin society. I learned later that her extended family unit had been killed as well, some of them in the war with the Iroquois, others trying to defend the Midewiwin society during the attack. She was taking me to her p
eople, her tribe, but they were not her close family. And her arrival there was not exactly welcomed with open arms.”
“Are you saying her people didn’t want you there once you arrived?” Rowan couldn’t believe it.
Nick interrupted. “Where was the bird during all this?” He gestured toward Nyx. “That thing you said about it coming to your window when Maiara was half-frozen, that ain’t normal.”
“Nick…”
“I’m just sayin’ people don’t usually talk to their hawks like that. Or have hawks as pets for that matter.”
Alexander turned from them to stare at the hawk and then handed the margarita to Rowan. He poured himself one, stronger than Rowan’s. He never answered Nick.
Rowan noticed. “Alexander, do you keep anything to eat out here? We haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
Blinking rapidly, Alexander snapped out of whatever revolving thoughts had sent him staring into his drink and looked at Nick. “Yes, I do, and she’s right, you need to eat and drink something. I can hear your stomach growling.”
Rowan noticed for the first time that night Nick looked truly exhausted. She’d been so caught up in Alexander’s story she hadn’t properly cared for her mate. Thankfully, a few moments later, a pot that smelled like chili and some crusty bread appeared on the kitchen counter.
“Whoa!” Nick said. His eyes blinked rapidly.
“Willow?” Rowan asked.
“Yes.”
“After the state of your apartment, I thought you’d sent him away.”
Alexander shrugged. “I did. I sent him here to the mountain where he feels at home. He’s an oread, Rowan. A mountain nymph. He belongs here, not picking up after a ghost of a man in a filthy one-bedroom apartment over a smarmy spiritual retreat.”
Her heart warmed. Perhaps she had been wrong about his suicidal tendencies this entire time. “You did it out of compassion for him, not because you wanted to turn him loose before you died.”
He whirled on her then, his dark hair wild around the sharp bones of his face. A dark cloud moved in behind his eyes. Rowan had never seen a person burned at the stake. She’d heard about it over the course of her long life but had never seen it. The way Alexander looked at her then, she would’ve sworn he was burning alive. The darkness in that look made her take a step back and hold her breath.
The Dragon of Sedona (The Treasure of Paragon Book 4) Page 11
