by Tessa Adams
“We’re going to have to use dragon and human form,” Gabe told him. “There’s no other way to cover that kind of distance. And since being in dragon form that consistently is going to put us at risk of discovery, we’re going to have to be extra careful, make sure any sentries we train can maintain invisibility for that length of time.”
“We’ll find a way to make it work,” Dylan said, a feral look on his face. “Because the next time the Wyvernmoons attack, I don’t want to take a chance with any of your lives. I want to be able to rip those bastards apart.”
“We’ve done that before,” Caitlyn said. “It hasn’t made much difference.”
“It will this time. Because I want to get them before they ever set foot on Dragonstar land. And I promise you, Gabe, if they come at us again, there will be no mercy. No one, surrender or not, fleeing or not, will fly out of here. If they attack us again, we’re wiping every single one of the bastards who come at us out of existence.”
“Damn straight,” Gabe told him fiercely. As everyone nodded agreement, Caitlyn looked around the table and realized that their beasts were riding them even more fiercely than hers was riding her. Maybe it was because they all knew what she was just now really coming to understand: they weren’t just in a fight for their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. They were in a fight for the very survival of their clan, and nothing could be allowed to stand in their way.
Not fear, not anger, not worry about the other Dragonstars’ delicate sensibilities. They were at war and it was past time they started acting like it.
That included her. The first chance she had, she was going back to the caves and searching for Matthew. She might have made a mistake earlier in letting him get away, but this time things wouldn’t unfold like that. This time, he wasn’t getting away from her until she got answers to all of her questions. And depending on his answers, maybe not even then . . .
Chapter Four
Another wild-goose chase.
Another two years of research wasted.
It wasn’t here, had probably never been here and he had just wasted way too many months on this latest useless search.
On the plus side, it wasn’t like he was going anywhere. After all these years, a few months here and there really didn’t matter to Matthew one way or another.
Except, his shoulders sagged, there really was no plus side. Despair slammed through him at the thought, had him thrusting a hand through his hair and focusing on the small cracks in the sand at his feet as he tried to just breathe.
There were thousands of them, tens of thousands, and as he walked he tried to tally each one. At first, it seemed impossible. They were infinite, unending. Or at least, that’s how it seemed. In reality, nothing was infinite, nothing lasted forever. Nothing except—
He slammed a wall down on the thought, knew that it would kill him if he let himself think too clearly about it. So he didn’t, instead he just walked, following the cracks with his eyes and feet as he counted each one. And did his best not to lose it completely. If he just kept walking, just kept moving, he would be okay. This overwhelming grief would pass him by and he would get through this. Just as he’d gotten through everything else he’d faced in the last one hundred and fifty-three years.
The wall didn’t last, no matter how hard he tried to maintain it. Instead, he repeated the empty reassurances to himself over and over again. Perhaps if he repeated them often enough, he’d start to believe them. It was worth a shot, as the lies sure beat the hell out of his current my-life-is-a-fucking-never-ending-nightmare that was his current mantra.
Frustrated, furious and more depressed than he wanted to acknowledge, Matthew headed slowly back to his car. To the copied documents that, at this moment, felt like they’d been his last hope in the world.
What was he supposed to do now? he wondered. How was he supposed to go on knowing that the shaman had been right? That it would never end? That he would run through this same cycle forever? Again and again and again.
He couldn’t.
That was the point. He simply could not go through this miserable circle of research, exploring leads, making mistakes and being disappointed one more time. Not if he wanted to retain his sanity—something he’d probably need in the long stretch of existence that yawned before him as pained acceptance finally began to take root. His future was as wide-open as the universe itself. As endless. And as eternal.
Settling himself in his car, he rested his forehead against the steering wheel and tried to come to grips with the fact that he was completely screwed. There was no other word for it. Even if he had the energy to hit the books again, to try one more time to search out the magic he needed to break the curse, he didn’t have a clue where to start. He’d exhausted every lead he had, sought out new ones and exhausted them as well. There was nowhere else to turn. This was it for him. He was stuck like this—young, never aging, never being injured, never dying—for eternity.
It didn’t sound so bad unless you actually lived it. Unless you watched as everyone you knew died and your entire way of life vanished. Not a day went by when he didn’t wish to go back, to change things. If he’d known how things were going to end up, he never would have tried to get answers about the Manso Native American tribe. Hell, if he’d known things would end like this—with them all but wiped out of existence and him the exact opposite—he never would have set foot in the New Mexico desert at all.
But recriminations would get him nowhere. He’d had enough regrets during the last century and a half to figure out that much. Still, he didn’t have anything else to do. Not anymore. He could sit here and explore might-have-beens for a decade or so and it still wouldn’t matter.
His mind flashed to Caitlyn for a brief moment. She was one more thing he regretted, one more thing in his past that he couldn’t change. He still found it amazing that her dragon hadn’t gutted him on sight—God knew, he deserved it after what he’d done to her the last time they’d been together. It had been unforgivable.
Still, he couldn’t change what he’d done, couldn’t fix it. Not now, when so much time had passed and—
A loud bang broke up his reverie, had him jumping before he could stop himself. He glanced around wildly for a second, trying to figure out where the noise had come from.
He didn’t have far to look. Caitlyn had just landed on the hood of his car. She’d hit it with enough power to not just get his attention but to also put a crater-sized dent in the hood. He tried to get angry about that fact, but couldn’t, not when she was crouched down and staring at him through the window, her turquoise eyes swirling dangerously.
Terrific. Just what he needed to make the day complete. A pissed-off, territorial dragon determined to make him pay for what she believed was an invasion of her territory. Not to mention one who gave every appearance of wanting to roast him after his disappearing act six decades ago.
When he didn’t immediately leave the car, she pounded twice on his windshield with her fist, a blatant demand if he’d ever seen one. Fantastic. Matthew rubbed a weary hand over his eyes before reaching for the door handle and letting himself out of the car. He had no idea what he was going to say to her, but it wasn’t like staying in the car and praying for everything to just disappear was really a viable option.
“Can I help you?” he asked, walking around to the front of the car. Keep it pleasant, he told himself. Don’t piss her off any more than she already was. Though he knew he’d win, he had no desire to get tangled up in a fight for dominance—especially not with a woman he had once made love to.
She stood up slowly so that he was forced to bend his neck to look up at her. She followed his every move with her eyes, her body poised to strike at any second. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’m no threat to you or yours.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She leaped dow
n off the car in one smooth movement, landed lightly at his feet. As she did, he smelled the same mixture of plush gardenia and sweet, wild, desert wind that he’d associated with her for the better part of a century.
“Maybe not, but that’s what you meant.” It was strangely exhilarating to stand this close to her, to see again all the pent up cravings that lived inside of her. Even her anger was passionate.
“You don’t get to decide what I meant.” She moved even closer, until her face was a mere inch from his. Like most of her kind, she was tall and he remembered liking the fact that her eyes were on the same level of his, that she didn’t need to look up at him to make eye contact. Or strain her neck when he’d kissed her.
She’d tasted like cherries and vanilla—dark and sweet and just a little bit dangerous. It was a combination that had swept him off his feet, had him responding to her in a way he’d never responded to another woman, even the wife he had once adored. Was it any wonder she had freaked him out so completely during that one weekend in Flagstaff?
“If I don’t get to make that decision,” he asked. “Who does?” Though it was stupid, and completely the wrong thing to do, he found himself pulling her tail just to see if she would roar. He kind of hoped so, and how sick was it that he was actually looking forward to seeing Caitlyn lose her temper? He grew hard at the thought. If the swirling sparks in her eyes were anything to go by, it would be a spectacular one. “You speak, I interpret meaning. It’s called communication. Conversation. I know this isn’t your first time participating in the ritual. Though we spent most of our time together otherwise engaged, I do remember a few sentences occasionally being exchanged. Besides the obvious, I mean.”
He stepped back and waited for the explosion. It didn’t take long. For a second, he thought her head was actually going to spin around.
But when she spoke, she was disappointingly cool. Calm. Collected. “You know, Matthew,” she said in a patient voice that set his teeth on edge. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but you need to leave my clan out of it. You don’t belong here.”
That was the understatement of the year. But then again, he didn’t belong anywhere, and after his latest failure, maybe this was as good a place to be as any. It could even be better, if it got him this close to Caitlyn again. Though she might not agree—yet.
“So, where do I belong, then?” The question slipped out before he knew he was going to ask it, and though he tried to play it off like a joke, he could tell by the look on her face that she understood more than he wanted her to.
“I’m sorry, Matthew, but that really isn’t my problem.”
Of course it wasn’t. What the hell had he been thinking? “I never said it was. You’re the one who came looking for me, after all.”
“Because you’re trespassing,” she snarled. “You need to get the hell off of our land.”
“Why? I’m not hurting anyone, not disturbing anything.”
“You’re disturbing me.”
He grinned, he couldn’t help himself. She was so fierce—eyes narrowed, hands curled into claws, her gleaming white skin flushed a delicate rose as her long blonde hair whipped around her in the wind. “Oh, yeah? And why is that?” He didn’t give himself a chance to think, just reached out a hand to see if her skin was as soft and dewy as it looked. As it had been all those years ago when he’d kissed every inch of her.
She slapped his hand away with a growl. “You don’t want to do that.”
“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “But I can’t seem to help myself.”
He reached for the hand that had batted his away. Circled her wrist and stroked the delicate skin there with his thumb. It felt good to touch her, better even than in his dreams. He lifted her hand to his lips, brushed a soft kiss across her palm as her eyes widened incredulously.
Her surprise didn’t last long and she yanked her hand away with a growl that seemed to come from deep inside of her, low and dark and strangely arousing. A normal man would have been afraid especially considering the fact that her eyes changed abruptly. He realized that he was looking into the eyes of the dragon and not the woman.
But he wasn’t a normal man, and he had nothing to lose. What was she going to do? Kill him for his impertinence in touching her? He could only dream of being that lucky. “You live in the middle of one of the driest places on earth. How is it that your skin is so soft?”
“Is that really what we’re here for? Beauty tips?”
“I was trying to be polite, making conversation. You should try it sometime.”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that.” She paused for a second, waited, but by the time he realized she was waiting on him to make a rebuttal, the moment had passed.
“Look, I don’t have time for this.” Caitlyn reached for him this time, her hand wrapping around his upper arm in a grip that was more prison guard than lover. How sick was it that he felt himself get harder anyway? “If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, fine. You can tell the authorities.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline your kind invitation.” He twisted out of her grip easily, and shock rippled across her face.
“Who are you?” she demanded again, confusion warring with the annoyance on her face.
A bunch of lies rose easily to his lips, stories and half-truths that he’d woven through the years when he’d found himself in situations that demanded an explanation. But as he stood there, trapped by the power and confusion of her gaze, he found that he didn’t want to lie. Not anymore and not to her. But the truth was too bleak, and something he didn’t want to talk about. Not now.
In the end, he settled for the only truth that mattered. “I’m no one.”
Caitlyn didn’t know what to think of the man standing in front of her. His words echoed in her head, sounded so sad and final that she actually hurt for him, even as she told herself she couldn’t afford to worry about him. This was the man who had made love to her for hours and then disappeared for decades.
The one who she’d caught snooping around Dragonstar land three times now.
But he was also the one who had just sent shivers down her spine when he’d kissed her hand. The one who made her dragon purr with almost no effort at all.
So what did she do now? she wondered. On the one hand, every ounce of common sense she had screamed at her to take him to Dylan. He was poking around Dragonstar land, was difficult to get anything out of and knew that dragons existed. It stood to reason that he was an enemy, especially the way he continued to dodge her questions instead of giving her a straight answer.
But her dragon didn’t see him as an enemy, and her instincts weren’t warning her of any danger. In fact, nearly every part of her—especially her beast—was drawn to him, fascinated by him. And the look on his face, the sadness in his voice when he’d said, “I’m no one,” touched something deep inside of her. Especially considering her dragon couldn’t sense the lie. He really believed what he was saying, and that bothered her more than she wanted to acknowledge.
Still, she couldn’t afford to trust him just because she felt sorry for him. They were at war and he was a stranger, poking around where he didn’t belong. A human stranger, but that didn’t mean anything—especially considering that he knew dragons existed. For all she knew, the Wyvernmoons could have hired him to come out here and find out as much as he could about the state of the clan, figuring the Dragonstars would leave him alone because he was human.
With Phoebe pregnant and the Council on the edge, she couldn’t afford to make a mistake in how she dealt with him. But she didn’t know how to deal with him––that was the problem. Her dragon had never responded to another male like this and it freaked her out, worried her. Split her concentration when she most needed to be focused.
“Look,” she finally said, as the silence between them grew heavy wi
th things unsaid. “I can’t just leave you here, unattended. Things are difficult right now and you look an awful lot like a threat.”
He started to speak, and she held up a hand to hold him off. “Let me finish. At the same time, I’m not sensing anything malicious from you. So, you have two choices. You can get the hell out of here, now, or I can call in my fellow sentries. And this time you won’t get away with just disappearing the way you did last time.”
“Are you sure about that?” His grin was back, more cocky and unrepentant than before, as if he knew what he was doing to her and was taking pride in it. Enjoyment. The thought made her teeth grind together even as her dragon preened under his smile. Her beast obviously liked cocky and obnoxious a lot more than her human side did. It shouldn’t come as any big surprise. Dragons were notoriously arrogant, after all.
“Pretty sure, yeah.” She recited a simple incantation in her head, cast the net out to trap him in case he tried anything. But he didn’t, almost as if he knew what she’d done. Which was impossible. Humans couldn’t pick up on dragon magic, couldn’t feel it the way another shifter could.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then you’re more of a threat than I thought and I need to report you. Now.”
He tilted his head, stared at her until she felt like a bug under a microscope. But she didn’t move, didn’t blink, barely even breathed. She knew what he was doing, knew they were playing a verbal game of chicken and that she could not afford to flinch first.
Finally, when her teeth were on edge and her nerves almost shot—not to mention her insides clawed bloody by her dragon—Matthew said, “All right, then. I guess I’ll go. It’s not like there’s anything to keep me around here anyway.”
It was the acquiescence she’d been waiting for, but instead of the relief she’d expected to feel, there was nothing. No relief, no concern, no feeling that she was doing the right thing. Only a strange, aching loneliness just below the surface of her skin, as if her dragon had missed him and couldn’t bear the thought of parting from him yet again.
