by S. E. Smith
She scowled and shook her head. “No, I slammed on the brakes because I almost ran a red light,” she said, pointing up at a strange rectangular box which hung from a wire across the road with a red light on it.
“Oh, red means stop I take it,” he reflected.
“Yes, green means go and yellow means go very fast,” she dryly replied, remembering a scene from one of her favorite alien movies.
“Ah, ingenious,” he murmured.
He watched the bottom circle turn to bright green. When it did, Tonya pressed the pedal on the floor and the vehicle began moving again. He itched to test the vehicle she was driving. He suspected controlling such a vehicle would be almost as much fun as when he had Nali’s fire-breathing stallions attached to the front of his carriage.
“Max doesn’t just ask questions, he gets answers. I don’t care how smart you think you are; he’ll know there is something different about you. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say it is best if you go home,” she declared.
“Nonetheless, I wish to meet him,” he calmly stated.
“Grrrr,” she growled under her breath.
He watched her push a lever on the side of the steering column. A green flashing light appeared on the console in front of her, and she turned onto the street. He stored the information in case he might need it later.
Five minutes later, they were pulling onto a long, winding driveway. Tonya came to a stop and looked at the house. She took a deep breath before she shifted the vehicle into park and turned off the ignition.
“Let’s do this,” she said, pushing open her door and stepping out.
Tonya rang the doorbell and impatiently waited at the door. She could hear the dogs barking in the background. A minute later she heard a voice yell for the dogs to get back. She frowned when a teenage boy peeked through the window before cracking open the door.
“Is Magna here?” she asked.
“No. They’ve gone to Seattle or someplace for the week. They’ll be back on Monday. I’m house/dog sitting until then,” the teen said.
“And they trust you?” she asked in disbelief.
The kid looked back at her with an irritated expression. “I’m responsible and over the age of eighteen. Besides, Gabe would kill me if I screw up and do anything stupid,” he moodily retorted.
“Yeah, I can see him doing that. Okay, thanks anyway,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“Do you want me to give them a message when they call to check on the dogs?” the teen asked.
Tonya shook her head. “No. I guess we’ll just have to wait until Monday. Thanks anyway,” she replied.
“No problem,” the boy said before he shut the door.
She gave Ashure an irritated glare when she saw his grin. He didn’t have to look so pleased. Pursing her lips, she pushed past him and started walking toward the car.
“Can I drive?” he asked in a hopeful voice behind her.
“No,” she snapped, pulling open the driver’s door.
She ignored the slight pout on his lips, but she didn’t miss the gleam in his eyes. He was just like a typical guy! Give them some shiny new toy—okay, her old car was hardly new or shiny, but it had an engine—tell them to keep their hands off it, and they saw it as a challenge.
“Please,” he begged sweetly.
“No,” she repeated, trying not to laugh when his pout grew. “Get in the car.”
“I guess this means I get to meet Max, yes?” he said with a satisfied expression.
“Not if I can help it,” she mumbled.
7
“Where are we going?” Ashure asked when Tonya turned in the opposite direction from the way they came.
“Since getting help from Magna has been delayed, I thought we’d go to the State Park. That seems to be the common denominator in the disappearances. Carly disappeared on a hike there. We’ll try that route first. Mike disappeared on the beach. Jenny disappeared in the Park too, but I’m not sure exactly where,” she explained.
“Do you really find my presence so distasteful that you cannot wait to be rid of me?” he quietly inquired.
She glanced at him before focusing on the winding road. “No, I don’t find you distasteful at all. It’s just—you don’t know how dangerous it could be if anyone found out who you really are and where you came from. Hell, the government alone would be the least of your concerns,” she said.
The sound of worry in her voice warmed his heart. If she was concerned, that meant she cared. If she cared, then he had a chance.
“I’m glad you find me attractive,” he replied.
“Is that all you care about? Didn’t you understand when I said that you are in danger here—like terrible, horrible, deadly danger?” she demanded.
“Yes, I understood you. You care about my welfare. A pirate is used to danger. We live for danger,” he said with a dramatic flair in his voice.
“Well, guess what?” she interrupted.
He paused with his hands in the air. “What?” he asked.
“Dead pirates don’t have much of a life. This next week is going to be a long one. I can just feel it,” she muttered.
“Everything will be fine. I am very resilient,” he promised.
The exasperated expression on her face plus the twitch of her lips and the amused glare she shot him pulled a chuckle from him. He reached over, grabbed her hand, pulled it to his lips, and pressed a light kiss to the back of it. The smile on her lips grew, and she shook her head.
“Are you this much trouble back on your world?” she curiously inquired.
“Trouble? Me? Of course not,” he baldly lied.
She gave him a skeptical look. “I don’t believe that for one second,” she retorted.
Tonya slowed to a stop at the Ranger’s kiosk. She rolled down her window and reached for her purse. Rooting around inside, she found her wallet at the bottom and pulled it out. Opening it, she pulled out her park pass and held it out to the ranger.
“Hi—oh, hey, how are you doing? Tonya, right?” the ranger greeted.
She looked up into Marty’s smiling face. “Yes, everything is good, Marty. I never really had a chance to thank you for your help. Did you get your jacket back? Dr. Field said he would make sure you got it,” she replied.
“Yeah, Anne called to let me know that you’d left it, and I stopped by on my way into work the following morning. I’m glad you’re alright. I’m surprised, with everything that’s happened, that you’ve stuck around what with all the disappearances. Some folks around here still think that Ross Galloway is responsible, more so now that he has vanished,” Marty replied, leaning against the windowsill of the kiosk.
“Ross Galloway is quite happy—especially now that he is no longer dead. He and Princess Gem are promised to each other. The others from your world are very content as well. Carly and Drago have several young dragons, and Orion and Jenny have added to their family. Mike and Marina are expecting their first, and Ruth is no longer the size of a child’s doll now that the spell the Sea Witch cast has been straightened out. Koorgan is very pleased about that,” Ashure good-naturedly shared.
Marty had a confused expression on his face and was trying desperately to get a better look at Ashure. Tonya’s jaw was beginning to hurt from grinding her teeth together and trying to keep the smile on her lips. She kept shifting forward and backward to obscure Marty’s view. So help her, if Ashure said one more thing, he wasn’t going to have to worry about the government or some crazed scientist torturing and killing him. She would do it for them.
“Well, it was nice talking to you. We’re just going to go for a short hike. I hope you have a nice day,” she said, plucking the paperwork out of Marty’s hand.
“But—how does he know…?”
Marty’s protest faded as she drove away. She was gripping the steering wheel so hard she wouldn’t be surprised if there were imprints left in it. Only when the kiosk was no longer in sight, did she take a long, deep breath and release it in
a whoosh.
“I thought that went very smoothly. Now he will tell everyone that Ross did not kill Carly and the others,” Ashure said in a smug tone.
Please, if there is a higher power out there somewhere, don’t give me an opportunity to push him off a cliff, she silently pleaded.
Tonya parked the car in the same parking spot that Carly Tate had before she disappeared. It was hard to believe more than three years had passed since Carly’s disappearance. No one had really made a big deal about it until Jenny vanished—and then Mike. It was after Jenny’s disappearance that she first heard about the story.
She looked at Ashure. He was standing on the other side of the car looking around the area.
There was something about him that she found both attractive and perplexing at the same time. He was cheerful, something she wasn’t all that familiar with in a lot of the guys that she had dated. Most of the guys she knew had enough baggage to fill a cargo tanker’s hold, and they appeared to enjoy carrying it around with them, unlike Ashure who embraced his unorthodox upbringing.
He was handsome in a devilish way. It wasn’t hard to imagine heated flesh and messy sheets when she looked at him. A silent curse slipped through her mind when her nipples grew taut at her thought of what he could do with them.
“I thought we could try the path that Carly was last known to have followed,” she suggested.
She pressed the lock button on the key fob in her hand. The horn beeped loudly, scaring a few birds that had settled in the trees. She pocketed the key, reached down, and zipped up her jacket.
No sense in advertising that my nipples are hard, she ruefully thought.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea to use the portal that Carly used,” Ashure commented in an uneasy voice.
She stepped around the car and frowned at him. “Why not?”
Ashure gave her a crooked smile. “Carly entered through a portal that took her to a Dragon’s Lair on the Isle of the Dragons, and it was not just any lair. It belonged to none other than Drago, King of the Dragons,” he explained.
“So what? You end up on the Isle of the Dragons. You’re friends with this Drago, aren’t you?” she asked.
He nodded, paused, and then shrugged. “Yes, I would consider myself on good terms with Drago, but you do not understand. Dragons are very possessive of their treasure. They use all types of magic and wards to prevent others—including other dragons—from finding it. If someone actually makes it through all of the traps the dragon sets, that dragon will know the moment a single piece of the treasure has been moved,” he continued.
She looked at him with a blank expression. “Treasure, dragons, okay, they are protective. I’ve seen the movies. This Drago didn’t hurt Carly, so obviously there might be a little exaggeration over how possessive they can be. Besides, you don’t want Drago’s treasure, you just want to get home,” she reasoned.
“Drago would burn me to a crisp if I even thought of stepping into his lair. I am many things but fireproof is not one of them, especially when that fire is from a dragon. I don’t exactly have the best reputation when it comes to resisting the lure of dragon’s gold,” he finally confessed.
“You’ve stolen from a dragon before?” she guessed.
“Stolen is a harsh word. I would say acquired through a…“ he paused and sighed. “Okay, once—I stole a gold coin from a dragon once. It is not an adventure that I care to remember,” he grudgingly admitted.
She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him. “You are not going to leave me hanging. Come on, I can smell a story here. Cough up what happened,” she persisted.
His face twisted into a pained expression of resignation. “I was a young lad, so the dragon didn’t kill me, but I will say that she left me…um…feeling a bit vulnerable. After forcing me to strip down, she burned my clothes, picked up her coin, and told me the next time I stole from a dragon, more than my clothes and pride would go up in flames. I had to procure clothing from a nearby village while wearing nothing more than leaves,” he said.
“She—oh, that must have been quite embarrassing,” she chuckled.
“Enough to be wary when dealing with a dragon,” he agreed.
She stepped forward and brushed a surprising kiss to his cheek. He looked down into her eyes. They glimmered with amusement. A slow smile curved his lips.
“I’m glad she didn’t roast anything important,” she murmured.
“How would you know unless you check?” he teased.
She tilted her head back and laughed, then patted him on the chest. She turned and started to walk away, but then she paused and looked at him with a sexy smile.
“You have a point. Seeing is believing, and I’m all about checking the facts,” she said with a smirk before she walked away.
Ashure stared after Tonya, grinning as he repeated in his mind what she had just said. He smoothed his hand down his chest to his groin. Yep, he had heard her correctly.
“Are we postponing sending me home, then?” he called out.
He touched his cheek where he could still feel the warmth from her lips. She laughed but didn’t answer his question and then disappeared up the trail. He was still grinning like an idiot as he hurried to follow her.
8
The peace of the forest washed over Ashure as they hiked. The path meandered upward through tall, thick redwoods and large ferns. Small creeks and waterfalls could be seen at different points on the trail. It was obvious that great care had been taken to provide scenic rest stops when the route was designed.
Small posts with metal plates attached to them showed pictures of plants and animals along with interesting details about them. Tonya stopped at each one, read the information, and then tried to find the plants amidst the flora. He loved watching her.
“I can feel your eyes on me again,” she dryly commented as if reading his thoughts.
“I’m simply admiring the view,” he defended.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “You must be quite the ladies’ man back where you come from,” she observed.
He gave her a sheepish grin. “I don’t believe that it would be in my best interest to respond to that statement,” he declared.
She straightened and shook her head. “Probably not,” she agreed with a laugh.
“It is very peaceful here. From what you described earlier, I expected a mob of angry humans with pitchforks and fire. This area reminds me of the Isle of the Giants,” he observed.
“The angry mob will come if you are discovered. You’re from the Isle of the Pirates, right? What is it like?” she asked.
He frowned as he thought of her question. He had always taken his home for granted. It was just the Isle that he came from—he hadn’t thought about how it would look from another’s perspective. For the first time in his life, he thought about how he would describe his home to someone who had never been there.
“The Isle of the Pirates is beautiful,” he began in a slow measured voice as they began walking again. “There are two main islands that make up the majority of the kingdom and almost a dozen smaller islands that surround it. The big island is where I reside when I am in port. I have to admit I don’t spend as much time there as I should. The love of traveling is still very much in my blood,” he confessed.
“Could it be more multifaceted? Maybe you have bad memories there that make staying put difficult,” she suggested.
“Perhaps, but my less than stellar memories have more to do with my parentage than with a specific area since my father never stayed in one place for very long. That may be why I’ve never really thought much about where I come from. It was always there,” he confessed.
“What was your favorite memory as a child?” she asked.
“The cobblestones,” he immediately replied with a grin. “I would ride in the back of the cart where my mother used to sell her crafts and potions and laugh when she would yell at the pedestrians who would get in her way. Her voice would bobble up and
down as the wheels bumped along the road.”
“Ah, you were one of those babies born with a sadistic gene,” she observed.
A deep, booming laugh slipped from him. “Perhaps just a hint, but I promise it was well deserved,” he said, pressing a hand over his heart.
“So, what else did you enjoy?” she pressed.
“The colors and all the wonderful people and things in the market, getting into mischief with the Sea Monkeys, riding on a Centaur’s back…,” he mused as one memory after another surfaced.
Ashure wasn’t sure how Tonya was doing it, but she compelled him to tell her things he had never shared with anyone else. She asked about his parents, and he told her. Not all his memories were bad, and those that were no longer seemed important when she pointed out all the incredible adventures he had experienced.
The afternoon flew by, and before he knew it, they were walking in silence back along the beach where Mike had last been seen. He reached over and took her hand in his. She squeezed it and came to a stop. They stood in silence, staring out at the water.
“There will be a fierce gale tonight,” he murmured.
“How can you tell? It looks calm and clear,” she said as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I can feel it. The sea is in my blood. We should return to your home,” he advised.
“Ashure,” she said as she faced him.
He looked down at her. Their eyes locked, and as much as he wanted to pull away before she could see the souls he held captive, he could not. She studied his eyes, then lifted her hand and laid it gently against his cheek.
“Thank you for today, Tonya,” he quietly said.
“We didn’t find any of the portals,” she replied.
“Sometimes what you seek is not what you are meant to find. Perhaps the portals are only meant to be found when the time is right for whatever destiny has in store,” he responded.
