“Hey, Mom,” she said past the lump in her throat, “sorry I haven’t gotten back to you, I lost my cell.”
“Again? Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter, I was only showing you a TikTok of a cat,”
“TikTok? Really, Mom? I’m not even on TikTok,”
“Well, you should be, those cat videos are hilarious,” her mother’s chuckle made a smile gently curve its way over her face, she didn’t know what she would’ve done if she had never heard her laugh again. “So, how’d you lose it this time?”
“I was hiking, and I must’ve left it on a trail somewhere,” Brianna explained, beginning the lie that she would live with for the rest of her days.
“Hiking?” Her mother snorted, “Why were you hiking? And where?”
“A few hours north from here, my editor wanted me to submit something new, so I thought I’d do a ‘town mouse, country mouse’ kind of feature.”
“Cute idea, although the fact that you lost your cell makes me think this mouse is better off in the town, unless there is a ruggedly handsome country mouse that we need to know about?”
“You don’t know the half of it, Mom, needless to say, an ant’s nest, is not a good place to pitch a tent,” Brianna continued. “And no, there’s no country mouse.”
Just an incredible and complicated country dragon who stole her heart and then stomped all over it.
“You don’t say!” Her mom’s raucous laughter poured down the line, making Brianna grin despite the cold longing in her heart, “but you’re home now? Minus your cell and the ants?”
“Yup, I’m home, just going to grab a hot shower and get to bed.”
“Well, alright then, Sweetie, you get a good night’s sleep and maybe we can do coffee sometime this week? I know your sister would love to join us for some girl time.”
After the real fear of never seeing her family again, the idea of an afternoon catching up with her beloved mom and sister brought fresh tears to her eyes.
“Sounds perfect, Mom,” Brianna choked out, “I can’t wait.”
She said her goodbyes and slumped on the couch. No sleep anytime soon for her. She had work to do. Brianna pulled an old patchwork quilt off from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders. It seemed no matter what she did, she couldn’t shift the coldness that had taken up residence in her body.
With a fortifying sip of coffee, she picked up her laptop. It whirled to life, her screensaver lit the screen showing a photo of when she had backpacked in Cambodia, Her beaming, carefree smile mocked her as she stood surrounded by the lush forest.
Brianna sucked in a sharp breath. Her pulse quickened and her palms began to sweat instantly.
It’s just a photo, just a photo, she chanted in her head as she hurriedly typed in her passcode with shaking hands. The image vanished and her inbox greeted her. Her eyes zeroed in on one from her editor entitled, ‘Termination of contract’.
It had been sent three days ago. What had she been doing three days ago? – Oh, yes, that’s right- hanging off a cliff and trying to avoid being eaten by a dragon.
She opened the email and scanned through the particulars. Yup. She was fired, effective immediately. The reason given was her ‘inability to provide copy of a sufficient standard and regularity.’
Pfft… whatever, asshole.
So, she was out of work. Brianna sighed. It wasn’t ideal, but she had about a month’s savings in the bank, she would find work and honestly, she found she truly didn’t care. She had thought that working for the newspaper would be exciting and fulfil a lifelong dream of being like Lois Lane. Turned out journalism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She would find something else that suited her better.
Brianna closed the email and scrolled to the bottom of her unread messages and kept scrolling to the last thing she remembered reading. She cracked her neck from side to side, opened the next email and dived in.
She’d get to the bottom of all of this, and then she’d take her life back, with or without her dragon.
Chapter Twenty
Brianna
One last time, Brianna told herself as she went over her checklist again. She was usually a forgetful kind of person, but not this time. This time she was going to be ready for anything.
It’d been a year since she had been foolish and desperate enough to follow Kyle Daxton into the Darkhills. This time she was prepared, she knew what awaited her. A pack of wolves, a vampire and his bride (who happened to have become one of her closest friends), and the dragon she loved.
One year: she had given herself one, whole year to try to get over him.
She’d been so mad at him at times, angry at what he had done, angry that he still hadn’t come for her or answered her calls. Other times she had woken herself with her own cries of anguish as she missed him with such painful intensity that she thought the cold in her heart would steal her breath.
The cold never left her. It was there buried deep inside her bones, no matter how high she cranked the thermostat, or how many blankets she wrapped around herself, the ice remained. She’d been on the receiving end of many a confused look from passers-by when she had rocked a duffel coat in the height of winter. Just when she thought she had gotten used to the cold and accepted it as part of the new normal, another chilling blast would course through her bringing on a fit of shivers that took control of her body.
Brianna had spent the past year trying to rebuild her world. She now worked freelance, had regular clients and enjoyed writing copy for online outlets and even dabbling in a little ghost-writing. She especially enjoyed the paranormal fiction, some writers got it so wrong it was like reading a comedy. Even forging a new career, though requiring hard work and long hours, her mind couldn’t let go of what she had left behind in the Darkhills.
After a string of panic attacks, she got therapy to help her with her fear of the forest, and while she would always be uncomfortable, she had learned enough coping mechanisms that made her brave enough to go back. She needed to go back. She needed to conquer her fear and she needed her dragon.
Therapy wasn’t the only thing she had done to prepare. Brianna had dedicated herself to her new passion, rock climbing. While she had only been able to scale indoor climbing walls, she felt stronger and more agile than she had ever been before. She hoped she wouldn’t need to scale the mountain to get to Etienne, but she felt more confident, knowing she had the skills, should she need them.
She’d taken up running, occasionally joining Katherine for an evening run whenever she and Lucian were in the city. Brianna wasn’t fast, and she would probably never run a marathon, but she had more stamina than she had a year ago. When she couldn’t distract herself with work or exercise, she binge-watched survival reality shows on repeat. She now had a good idea of how to build a shelter, how to forage for food and how to make a fire.
One year of making sure her heart wasn’t playing a cruel trick on her.
One year of relentless ice in her heart.
One year of sitting on the rooftop of her building each night, calling to him in her mind.
One year of preparing to go after what she wanted.
Brianna closed and locked the door to her apartment and hefted her well-stocked hikers' backpack onto her tiny frame.
It was time to reclaim her dragon.
◆◆◆
The mountain trail was tough, barely distinguishable from the rest of the mountainside at points, but Brianna kept putting one carefully placed foot in front of the other. While she had been relieved that she had found a trail at the base of the mountain, she started to have her doubts about whether it would take her anywhere near the mouth of Etienne’s cave. If need be, she’d make camp at one of the more level parts of the trail, but she hoped she would make it to his cave before sunset.
She’d spent two days hiking in the forest. She wasn’t alone, she had reminded herself on multiple occasions. She had a satellite phone with her, and she knew that if she needed to, she coul
d call Katherine and Lucian and they’d come to bail her out. But she found that she hadn’t needed them.
Yes, the forest was a little frightening at night, and she didn’t sleep well when she had made camp, but she had survived. She’d walked through the pines and been able to admire their stoic beauty. The forest was no longer her enemy, she had made her peace with it.
Every hour, on the hour, an alarm would ping on her phone, reminding her to call out to Etienne. So far, he still hadn’t replied, but Brianna wouldn’t give up on him. If he truly didn’t want anything to do with her, then he could tell her that to her face.
And then she would fight for him.
She rounded the next steep curve of the trail slowly and was both thrilled and anxious at the sight of the rocky ledge that led to his cave. It was not directly on the path. Brianna would have to do a little careful climbing to make it down to where she could get a foot onto the ledge.
She stopped and pulled out her water canteen to rehydrate and carefully assessed the terrain. Although the twenty-foot drop didn’t look like much, the cliff edge was littered with loose rock. She made a mental note of where she would place every hand and every foot, then she scrutinised her path again, making sure there were back up placements that she could reach nearby should the rock face prove unstable.
With her route planned she chose a strong and stable boulder and tied her rope around it, hammering it in place. Then she clipped it onto the harness around her waist and took a deep breath.
“Come on, B, if you can hear me, I would really appreciate you flying up here. You’d save me a lot of trouble.”
As she suspected, she received no reply. When she saw his ornery ass, Brianna swore she was going to chew him out for being so stubborn, but she’d made it this far without him and if the past year had taught her anything about herself, it was that she was not afraid of a little hard work.
Brianna took the narrow slope that led down toward the mouth of the cave and when it became too narrow to walk, she couched and spread her weight as evenly as she could. She reached forward with one hand securing it on the solid cliff edge before she slowly stretched her leg out and made purchase with her first foothold.
Slowly and steadily, she scaled the cliff face, her heart in her throat and every movement controlled and planned. When her foot stepped down onto the ledge and the rest of her body carefully followed, she breathed out a huge sigh of relief. She had made it. Brianna inwardly cheered. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d have the guts or the ability to do what she just did.
It seemed love was a persuasive incentive.
She unclipped her rope and fastened it to her backpack, leaving it on the ledge as she stepped inside the cave. She peered into the darkness and frowned. He was nowhere to be seen.
Her heart sunk at the thought that maybe he had moved on. Left the Darkhills and made a home elsewhere. Maybe he had found someone else to mate with. Her frigid heart stung, and she rubbed at her chest.
As she stepped further into the cave and made her way to the back where she knew the tunnel entrance was, she called out to him.
“Etienne? B? Are you here?”
There was no reply, only her echo came rebounding back at her. When her eyes landed on the pile of rocks blocking the tunnel she gasped and immediately ran towards it. Her hands gripped at the stone and she heaved with all that she had to shift the rocks, but she was only able to move a few of the smallest.
“Hang on, B. I’m going to get you out,” she muttered to herself as she turned to look for something to use to pry the rocks loose, her heart caught in her throat as she finally saw him.
Her heart felt as though it had stopped as her mind made sense of what she was seeing. There, on the other side of the cave, was a life-size stone carving of Etienne. It was as though someone had carved it out of dark, volcanic stone and left it in place of where the real dragon should be.
She crept closer and felt her heart skip at even seeing this statue version of her dragon. It looked just like him, every scale, every horn, every talon was an exact replica. He looked peaceful, curled up like an exceptionally large and intimidating cat taking a nap. OK, so he was nothing like a cat. But seeing the statue all nestled down as if asleep, made Brianna want to curl up right next to it and join it for a little snooze.
She reached out and ran her hand along the surface of the carving’s snout. It was icy cold to the touch and it was as though she could feel it resonate within her every time her fingers lightly grazed the surface.
Her eyes welled with tears as she continued to stroke all along the stone dragon, admiring it from every angle. It was a perfect likeness to her Big B. The only thing it lacked was his warmth, his fire and his soul.
Brianna stepped carefully into the nook between where the statue dragon’s front legs were tucked beneath it and sat down. She lay her head back against it and closed her eyes. That way she could imagine that it was real, and Etienne was curled around her, protectively.
But it wasn’t him. He wasn’t there. Perhaps this was something he had put in place as a way of warding off intruders from entering what had been his home. He’d done a good job of recreating his impressive and intimidating presence. All anyone had to do was dare touch it, to discover it was all just a rouse. The cold from the stone flowed into her from where she leaned against it, mixing with her ever-present chill factor until she felt pleasantly numb. There was a comfort in sharing the cold with something. It made her feel a little more normal, as though she wasn’t carrying the burden of her frozen heart alone. There was someone else who suffered the same and understood.
Pity, it was a hunk of rock.
Tears began to flow in earnest as Brianna sat there with the poor substitute for her dragon. He was gone and wasn’t ever coming back into her life. She had tried, she had fought for him, faced her fears and grown as a person as a result but ultimately, she had lost him. She had no idea where he had flown away to, or whether he would ever return. She’d had just a few days with him, and she would have to be satisfied with that. That and her mating marks.
She’d finally seen them in the mirror at her apartment and had cried at just how perfect they were. Bold yet delicate, the silvery lines would sometimes look as though they rippled with faint purple as she moved. She loved them and kept them hidden beneath her clothes as her own private joy. They were such an integral part of her now she felt as though they were a living breathing layer of armour, a small talisman of her dragon that she had with her for always.
Brianna sat against her stone dragon and watched the sun move across the sky. It was time to leave. Etienne was gone and if she chose to stay the night in the cave, she would only prolong her sadness. She wiped at the remaining dampness that stained her cheeks and steeled herself to stand and say her goodbyes.
She stepped out of the statue’s hold and knelt in front of the dragon’s head, carefully holding its huge, spiked jaw in her hands.
“Etienne, thank you for every moment we shared, I know we parted on angry words and believe me when I say I wish we could go back and do things differently. Maybe then we could’ve realised the love in our hearts was more powerful than the anger and pain. I’m sorry for the part that I played, and I know that if you were here, you’d feel the same regret.”
Brianna pulled in a deep lungful of air and pressed her forehead against the statue’s snout.
“I love you, B, Etienne, I always will.”
Brianna placed a small lingering kiss against the stone. It almost felt warm against her lips, that was how numb she had become.
Slowly, she stood and walked from the cave. Her heart ached afresh but the chill felt like it was beginning to ease. Perhaps she just needed to make her peace and gain some closure. Brianna knew she wouldn’t be able to resist trying to reach him with her mind again. Some days she’d get lonely, or on those nights when she couldn’t sleep, she knew she’d speak to him. He wouldn’t answer but that was OK, it was just how it
would have to be.
The journey hadn’t ended how she had hoped, if anything her pain and heartache had just been revived to inflict more suffering, but she knew now that he was gone. He had chosen to leave, and she had to respect his choice.
While she didn’t have her dragon, she had faced her fears, found a new career, new friends and now knew that her world was bigger and more beautifully diverse than she had ever dared dream.
Brianna stood on the ledge and looked out at the treetops below, the sun was low in the sky, and she knew she needed to hike back up the cliff face and find a decent spot to pitch her tent for the night. But the glow of the sun called to her and she allowed herself one last moment to close her eyes and remember flying with her dragon, feeling freer than she ever had.
The rays of the weak sun reached out and wrapped themselves around her and for the first time in a year she felt a hint of warmth creeping in. Brianna leaned her head back and smiled as the cosy glow intensified and filled her up inside.
“Brianna?” A phantom voice echoed in her mind.
Her eyes shot open, and she spun around searching the skies.
“Etienne? Is that you?”
“Little One, you returned.”
His voice was weak and slurred, and a strange mix of relief and worry for her dragon flooded her. A movement in the shadows of the cave caught her eye and she immediately sprinted towards it. The statue was moving, slowly and as if pained.
“B? Oh my god, B!” Brianna threw herself at the dragon and began peppering its hard and unyielding face with kisses. “I’m here, I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“Brianna.”
“Yes, it’s me, I’ve got you, B and I’m not going anywhere,” she wept as she felt the hard stone surface soften and become smooth silken scales once more.
Warmth began to creep into her skin and the dragon took slow and laboured breaths.
Broken Slumber: A Darkhills Romance Page 15
