“Sounds like a place where you’d expect to see dragons. At least fire-breathing ones.” My stomach flip-flopped at her words but I did my best to keep my expression neutral as I nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, I guess it kind of does, doesn’t it? Ciara, you didn’t walk all the way over here to talk about fairy tales, did you?”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about to be honest Lani. I went to bed last night, fell asleep fast and woke up to the sound of that bird. But before I could get myself too worked up about it, I had this image of a dragon flying over the house and chasing the bird away and I slept like a baby after that. I tried asking Edan about it but he brushed me off, saying it was all a dream. And Hugh, who is always the first to jump at the opportunity to talk about dragons, clammed right up when I asked him before breakfast this morning.
“Kailani, I know there is something going on here but no one will talk to me about it and whatever it is, it’s getting more serious. I can tell by the hard set of my husband’s shoulders sometimes when he’s lost in thought. I know my father-in-law and how he used to talk crazy about dragons and fairies and the magic of the waves, but even he has become more subdued. And it all started when you arrived. I’m not saying you’re the cause,” she said quickly when she saw the look on my face. “But I think you know something.”
“Ciara,” I started and then stopped, as I idly played with my long braid. I couldn’t lie to this woman, she had as much right as everyone else to know what was going on but her inability to want to believe in ‘hocus-pocus’ kind of had me stuck. Finally, I let out a big breath that I hadn’t realized I had been holding in and stood up.
“Can you come for a bit of a walk with me? I want to show you something.” She nodded and slowly rose to her feet and I held the door open for her so she could pass me and go back out into the sunshine. Once we were both outside, I looped my arm through hers and we started walking towards the cliffs. “Your husband and father-in-law aren’t keeping anything from you intentionally, at least from what I can tell. But you tend not to buy into more fantastical beliefs, like herbal remedies for example, so it kind of ties their hands a bit.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“When I first arrived here with Mack, I had no idea how or why any of it had happened. My parents and grandparents had forbidden me from ever coming to Scotland but no one ever gave me a reason why. They just said it was better for me not to know, but I had to trust them. Well, that reasoning doesn’t sit well with a strong-willed teenager who only wanted to come here and see the castles in England, Scotland and Ireland. A few years after my parents passed away, my best friend Rachel and I worked up the nerve to disobey the direct order I’d lived with my entire life and we booked our castle-tour.
“I loved every single minute of it, all of the stops at the majestic castles, seeing some ruins, the coastlines, the landscapes. All of it took my breath away. And then our tour bus drove past your lane way and suddenly that’s all I could think about. Our tour guide was only able to tell us the Cameron name, that you were expecting and Hugh was thought to be going crazy. But suddenly I was obsessed and had to come out here on my own to at least touch the big wall. The next thing I know, I’m on the side of the road in the dark, Mack is picking me up in his truck and I’m riding with him through gates I can never go through again by myself.”
“What do you mean you can’t go through the gates alone?” she asked in complete confusion as we reached the cliffs. The wind seemed to sense our presence because it blew a little harder, tossing her long blonde hair around her shoulders and plastering her maternity dress to her round stomach and I stared out at the distant waves silently for a moment, my gaze travelling along the wet stone and sand shoreline that the tide had left us with before I turned back to her.
“If I try to leave these grounds without a Cameron heir, I change forms, Ciara. It’s what started happening to me the night the cab left me in your driveway. And it’s why my eyes are the way they are now.” I looked over at her until she made eye contact with me, making sure she saw the reptilian-eyes that had unsettled her so much the first morning I’d stayed with them and she scrunched her brow in confusion.
“Change forms? Lani, I don’t understand.” She looked completely bewildered and watched me slip off my shoes and start to make my way down the path to the wet beach below.
“If I tell you, you won’t believe me. So I will have to show you instead. Stay up there on the grass, and whatever you do, or whatever you think, just remember that I won’t hurt you, okay? It’s still me.” I turned back to face her, walking backwards the last few paces and I saw her shake her head as she tried to make sense of what I was saying to her.
“Lani, I - OH!” She threw a hand up to shield her eyes from the sudden flash of light that momentarily blinded her and when she lowered her hand again, whatever she had been about to say was immediately forgotten.
I wasn’t sure how Ciara would react to me once she saw me so I stayed perfectly still on the wet sand below her, my head lowered slightly, my tail tucked around my back legs and my wings folded in closer to my body. I watched her closely as she took one step down the path towards me, and then another.
“This can’t be real. This can’t be real.” She kept repeating the same four words over and over, even as she continued to come closer, one step at a time down the path to the sand. “Kailani, is that really you?” she whispered, her voice trembling as she tried to control her fear, her arm wrapped protectively around her tummy and I slowly bobbed my head up and down.
“I wish I could talk to you and assure you it’s me.” I thought painfully, watching her take baby steps closer to me and when she stopped abruptly and looked up at me, blinking in shock I cocked my large head to the side. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes I can. I can hear your thoughts in my head. How is that possible?” she asked in amazement and I gave the dragon-form version of a shrug and huffed slightly in surprise. “You - you’re - a dragon. A living, breathing dragon. All of my grandmother’s fables were true. Oh my god.” She murmured, more to herself than to me as she sank down on a rock behind her, staring at me as tears filled her eyes. I lowered my head right down so it almost grazed the sand at her feet and looked up into her eyes, making sure she recognized that, while my body was different, my eyes were still mine, and she raised a hand and laid it on my snout.
“I can’t explain very much to you because I’m still learning as I go. But this is the big secret that everyone seems to know except you.”
“You’re beautiful. Such a vibrant burgundy and silver. I can barely believe I’m really seeing this and I’m touching you right now.” She laughed giddily like a schoolgirl and I raised my head back up, letting her hand fall into her lap and I stepped back from her to make sure there was lots of space between us. “Can I see your wings?” she asked hopefully and I was amazed at the complete turn of events. Of all of the people on the estate, I had figured she would have been the most freaked out by me but so far, I hadn’t found a single person who was afraid of me. Didn’t exactly bode well for my confidence but I also wasn’t trying to be a fierce fire-breather right now. I stretched my wings out fully, throwing a huge shadow behind me on the sand and Ciara laughed again in disbelief, hugging her tummy and rocking back and forth on her rock in excitement.
“Unbelievable! You look just like my painting! And you are the dragon I saw in my dreams last night. Right down to the silver shimmer of your underside. You can fly, obviously.”
“Yes I can fly. My whole life I’ve felt the need to fly and I couldn’t understand why. I wanted to throw my arms open as wide as they could go and just take flight but obviously, humans can’t do that. The first time I changed forms I suddenly understood that burning desire. I would offer to take you for a ride but I doubt your husband would like that very much.” The lighthearted tone of my thought made her chuckle and pat her stomach again.
“Make that offer again in a month af
ter these two have been born and I won’t care. I’ll gladly take you up on that offer then.” A thought occurred to her and her expression became very solemn as she looked up at me, squinting at the bright sun that reflected off my shiny scales and I drew my head back down to the sand so she could look down at me, taking the strain off her eyes. “So you said you can’t leave the estate now without Edan or Hugh to accompany you. You’re a prisoner here?”
“If I try to leave, you see what happens. I don’t know if the rest of Scotland would be as accommodating as everyone here has been if a giant dragon suddenly flew overhead. So, in a sense, yes I guess I am. I know Hugh and Edan would take me off the property if I wanted to go somewhere but I haven’t really felt that need yet.”
“But don’t you want to go home?”
“Of course I do. But I have a feeling I’m needed here more right now than I am at home. Something brought me here when it did for a reason, I’m just not sure yet what that reason is.”
Chapter 10
While Ciara was down on the coast with me, Ian was with Edan, examining his swollen knee with a frown.
“I’m guessing Kailani’s soccer game yesterday took a toll on your joints.” He commented, watching Edan straighten and bend his leg slowly from his sitting position on the exam bed that Ian had in his cottage.
“Aye, I’m sure it didn’t help but it felt good to play. We haven’t been that competitive since we were teenagers.” Edan chuckled and Ian smirked at the memories that comment brought to mind.
“Ah yes, the games we’d engage in after a few pints at the local pubs. How we didn’t break our necks back then is beyond me.”
“Can’t say we didn’t try.” The two friends shared an amused look before Ian turned to his locked cabinet, opened it and took a bottle of anti-inflammatories out. Tossing the Laird the bottle, he leaned back against the counter and regarded Edan as the big man shook two pills into the palm of his hand and then tossed them into his mouth. “Edan, can I ask you a question? A personal one, I mean?” he asked slowly after a moment and Edan looked at him in surprise.
“Of course. What’s on your mind my friend?”
“You and Ciara - how did you two end up together?” at the question, Edan blinked a few times and then he relaxed and chuckled.
“Well, you know her family and mine have been close for longer than Da has been alive so we grew up together. She went her way and I went mine after middle-school and years later, we happened to bump into each other at a charity event at the art gallery. One look into her eyes and I was a lost cause.” He admitted, a tender look in his eyes at the thought of his wife and Ian swallowed hard.
“And that was it? You knew she was the one for you?”
“She fascinated me. She had this free spirit that nothing seemed to be able to dampen. Her love of life, appreciation of the beauty of nature and the world around her. She mesmerized me because I’d never known anyone else like that. Why do you ask? Doubting your own feelings for a particular lass, are you?” Edan gave him a faintly knowing look and the young doctor ran a hand through his hair in agitation.
“I don’t know. She’s so different from everyone I’ve ever met. Every time I see her, it pulls me in and I’m terrified.”
“Terrified of what? That she’s a dragon? That she’ll hurt you?”
“Dragon or human, it doesn’t matter to me. That’s just her shell. I’m terrified that I’ll get sucked into an infatuation that I won’t be able to break free from and she won’t feel the same way. One minute I think she likes me, the next she’s impartial.”
“Well,” Edan paused as he thought about what to say next to his friend and when he spoke again, he chose his words carefully. “What’s going on with you and Stephanie?”
“Steph? Nothing. I know she had a crush on me once and sure, she’s cute. But Jamie has been following her around like a puppy for years, and as my cousin, I won’t do that to him.” Ian looked confused by the question but then realization hit him hard. The last time that I had seen him and Stephanie together they had been coming out of her cottage after he’d given her a physical and written her a renewal prescription for contraception. Steph had been embarrassed about the physical and he had already been flustered about his feelings for me which hadn’t helped and suddenly it became clear to him. I thought there was something going on between them.
“Well, it might not be a bad idea for you to let Stephanie down easy then. Because I think all she sees is you. And perhaps she is all that Kailani sees.”
“But what if she sees me and I’m not enough for her?” his voice turned pained and Edan’s gaze turned sympathetic. He slid down off the examining bed and limped over to where his friend stood and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“What if she looks at you and sees what the rest of us see? A strong, supportive, caring man who has been my best friend and supporter for years? A man who puts everyone’s needs and well-being ahead of his own?”
“You said you knew Ciara was the one when you looked into her eyes. I’m afraid to look into Kailani’s for too long - “
“Why? Because they’re so different?”
“No, that’s not it at all. I’m afraid to look into her eyes for too long because when I do I feel like I’ve been turned upside down and spun around a thousand times. I don’t feel stable on my feet, I can barely form a coherent sentence. I feel like I’m falling apart every time she looks at me.”
“That’s exactly how I feel every single time I look into my wife’s eyes, my friend. In that, you’re not alone.” With that, Edan turned and left the exam room, walking out of the doctor’s cottage and leaving Ian with his mind full of conflicting thoughts.
By the time Ciara and I walked back to the main house, we were giggling like best friends sharing a secret and when I held the door open for her to walk into the kitchen, she went to sit on one of the stools with an exhausted sigh and Alice turned to her with a concerned look on her face.
“Miss Ciara, you look like you could use a drink and possibly a snack. What can I get ye?”
“Perhaps a glass of juice. Lani, would you like anything?” the young woman turned to me and I shook my head quickly.
“I’m good, really. But thank you anyway.”
“Well then sit with me while I rest. That is why Edan hired you after all.” She said in mock seriousness and I smiled faintly and sat down on the stool beside her. Alice looked at her curiously and when her gaze shifted to me questionly, I just raised my eyebrows with a semi-amused smile on my face. The cook poured a glass of cranberry juice for Ciara and set it in front of her with a small dish of almonds and raisins and when she left the kitchen again to give us some privacy, Ciara looked at me and started to giggle.
“I feel positively light-headed right now. I finally know what everyone else does and no one knows it but you.” Her bright smile faded a little when she saw a shadow cross my features and she reached over and covered my hand with hers. “Lani? What is it?”
“There’s more to this story Ciara than just my being a dragon but I don’t know if it’s my place to tell you.” I hedged and she frowned immediately.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because this land doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to your husband’s family and - “
“And it has to do with the estate. Lani, I love my husband more than anything but if he won’t talk to me about you, do you really think he’ll talk to me about something he considers business?”
“I don’t know if it’s considered business, as more supernatural hocus-pocus.”
“Well if that’s the case, who better to explain it to me than you? I could start drinking herbal teas and practicing witchcraft in my bedroom and Edan would probably think I was making fun of him instead of being serious. I’ve hidden behind that hocus-pocus line almost the entire time I’ve known him.”
“What do you mean ‘hidden’?” I looked at her in confusion and she sighed and sipped her juice. Pushing her bowl slightly
in my direction, I accepted an almond and a few raisins as I waited for her to continue and finally she did.
“I told you about my grandmother always telling me those wonderful fables about dragons and I used to love every single one. But that wasn’t all she talked about. She would talk about fairies and witches and always made off-handed comments about us all living together in relative harmony because the average human didn’t believe in the others. I asked her once how she knew that and she took me up to her attic where there were so many old textbooks of spells and reagents that it just shocked me. I asked her if she was a witch and she said not exactly. Her father had been a warlock and most of the books were his. But she had been learning the craft in her spare time. She could cast spells, preferring the protection and healing aspects over the more destructive ones that were also in his books. The older I got, the crazier I thought she was and started to distance myself from her but I never forgot what she told me.”
“And because you thought she was crazy, you tried to distance yourself from anything else that might be considered crazy so that you wouldn’t be associated with it.” I finished her thought out loud, my mind bringing a mental image of Gran up. How many times had Rachel and I, as teenage girls who thought we knew it all, done the same thing? And look where it had gotten me.
“Funny, I remember saying to Edan and Hugh at this exact spot this morning that there is a fine veil between what everyone considers real and more fantastical beings.” I murmured and Ciara eyed me over her glass with a raised eyebrow.
“So in all honesty, you, Miss Lani, are the most qualified person in my mind to tell me what’s going on.” Her tone of voice, and logic, were solid and I wavered slightly and then nodded.
“Okay.” But just as I opened my mouth to launch into the same story I’d told the guys earlier, Madeline walked in and interrupted us.
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