“Looks like you do have some ’splainin’ to do.” Niall put out one hand. “Give me your keys, hotshot, and you can set the lady straight while you drive her home.”
“Whose home?” Ginger demanded, her eyes narrowed.
Delaney didn’t blame her for being uncertain about the arrival of the Pyr. They’d shown up all at once, after all. “Could we go back to your place?” Delaney asked. “I can explain things to you, but it will take a while.”
“And them?”
“They’re part of this story.”
“So they’re your friends?”
Delaney met Niall’s gaze and found a glimmer of unexpected humor there. The other Pyr understood Delaney’s hesitation, his conviction that he was too different to expect camaraderie from his former fellows.
Yet the Pyr had come to aid his firestorm. Sloane and Niall had fought alongside Delaney, just like old times, and Thorolf had stood guard over Delaney’s mate. The bond between them was strong and their loyalty undiminished by the darkness that had made him act against his own urges in the past.
It was more than he deserved to expect of them, and he was glad of their presence.
“Yes,” Delaney said with satisfaction, feeling that the change Ginger had made within him made it possible for him to claim his allegiance to the Pyr once more. “Yes, they’re my friends.”
Chapter 6
Delaney had introduced the other men quickly, then tossed the rental car keys to Niall. Ginger was still trying to make sense of their all being dragon shape shifters, not men. She’d only tried to witness Delaney’s change, but she had seen Sloane and Niall as men beside her in one moment and as dragons the next.
Plus, she’d heard and felt that garnet dragon fall, shaking the earth so hard that her teeth had rattled. She’d felt the fire breathed by the jade dragon and if she’d doubted her memory, her blackened jacket was telling evidence.
She was definitely wide-awake.
On one hand, she wanted to go back and see that fallen dragon again, the one they called Mallory. She wanted to prod him, make sure he was dead, and confirm that he was really a dragon. On the other hand, it seemed smarter to let dead dragons lie.
She insisted on driving, needing to do something normal to put her thoughts in order. Delaney sat calmly beside her, looking more at ease in her battered truck than she felt.
Ginger supposed she should be more afraid of Delaney than she was. She was afraid of what he could become, but he had protected her. There was also that distracting shimmer of desire. Her memories of their night together and his tenderness overwhelmed her doubts.
For the moment.
Maybe it was because the heat between them was stronger than ever and impossible to ignore. It turned her thoughts in a very basic direction, which made it tough for Ginger to be logical. He cast a look her way, his expression knowing and secretive and intimate.
Ginger tingled. Was this what it meant to be beguiled?
Ginger looked back at the road. She liked how Delaney’s presence made her feel, though, sexy and powerful. She caught herself admiring the lean strength of Delaney’s legs, the shape of his jaw, the glint of red in his hair. She should have been thinking of what he had just done, but instead she was recalling how considerate a lover he had been.
He’d left her tingling.
And wanting more.
She could smell his skin and the cab of the truck seemed much smaller than she remembered. She thought of everything they had done together, and how Delaney had fought as a dragon—fair but hard—and felt her interest in him redouble.
There was something alluring about a man who was both a lover and a fighter, a man who could use force when necessary but be gentle in other moments. That was exactly the kind of man Ginger had always hoped to find.
The dragon bit defied belief.
But she’d seen most of it.
Incredibly enough, his explanation was the one that made the most sense.
Dragon shape shifters.
Ginger gripped the steering wheel and told herself to focus on driving. She drove with care through the snow, comfortable in the familiarity of her vehicle and knowing that few people would be on the roads this morning. Most would have the sense to stay home, put on a pot of coffee, and wait it out.
Her awareness of Delaney’s presence beside her grew with every moment of silence that passed. She could hear him breathing. Heat emanated from him and seemed to grow between them. She turned off the heater, but it made no difference—the cab was filled with a golden glow and the snowflakes melted the moment they touched the windshield.
Delaney waited with a patience that Ginger appreciated. He must have known that his reality wasn’t easy for someone to accept. She stole the occasional glance at him, as struck by how handsome he was as she had been the night before.
“Tell me,” she invited, once she’d turned onto the highway.
He settled back in his seat and she realized he’d been uncertain of what she’d say. “There’s a lot to tell,” he said, but she knew from his thoughtful tone that he wasn’t avoiding the discussion. “Ask me a question to get me started.”
“What’s the deal with the cave? And who was the jade dragon?”
Delaney frowned. “I need to start earlier than that. We’re dragon shape shifters, as you saw, and we’re called the Pyr.”
“Why?”
“It’s ancient Greek for ‘fire.’”
“You were around to be named by the ancient Greeks?”
“Our species was. I’m not nearly that old.”
She flicked him a look, curious, and found him watching her. He held her gaze, inviting the obvious question. His eyes were normal human eyes, and a warm shade of green.
His gaze made her even more aware of his presence and left her feeling both feminine and aroused.
Even knowing what she did about him.
Gran had always said that it was incredible what a person could learn to accept and Ginger saw the truth in those words again. Just a few hours ago, she’d had no idea that there even were dragon shape shifters, let alone that she’d brought one home. Not long ago, her brain had been unable to process Delaney’s change, but now she was prepared to accept his advanced age.
She would have bet that she’d be able to watch the whole transformation now, knowing what was coming, but wasn’t quite ready to volunteer.
Yet.
“How old are you?” she asked instead.
“Four hundred and fifty years, give or take.” Delaney said it so matter-of-factly that Ginger believed him. It wasn’t, after all, the first impossible thing she’d heard that day. “I was born in 1564.”
Ginger blinked. “Not here.”
“No. Ireland.” He gazed out the window at the fields they passed. “In a way, this reminds me of it. Your farm brings back memories.”
Ginger supposed that Ireland must have been completely agrarian in the sixteenth century. And that was where he had worked on a farm that bred and raised workhorses. It was easier to accept what he told her when she considered each fact individually. “Are you immortal, then?”
“No. We just age slowly.” He waited, but Ginger just nodded, chewing on that detail. She was sitting with a man who was four hundred and some years old.
Not a man—a Pyr.
A dragon shape shifter.
The road was becoming harder to discern with every passing moment. Ginger supposed that the plows hadn’t been out yet—but then, what would be the point, when the snow was still falling so thick and fast?
Delaney continued to speak. “Our task is to protect the treasures of the earth and that’s where it gets tricky. The Pyr traditionally included humans among those treasures, as well as the four elements and the earth itself. A long time ago, some Pyr decided that humans were too destructive, and that humans had to be exterminated to protect the planet. Those Pyr became known as Slayers.”
“Because they slaughter humans?”
“Yes,
as well as the Pyr who defend humans.”
Ginger nodded, understanding a bit of what she had witnessed. “Good guys and bad guys. I’m with you so far.”
“Traditionally, turning Slayer was a choice. It was said that Pyr were born and Slayers were made.”
“I heard a ‘but’ in that.”
“But,” Delaney ceded, casting her a smile that made her heart go thump, “the Slayers found the Dragon’s Blood Elixir. We were just in the sanctuary that holds the source of the Elixir.”
“That big rock crystal vial with the red juice in it.”
Delaney nodded. “And the jade dragon was Magnus, leader of the Slayers, who defends the Elixir as his own.”
“Why?”
“Because a lot of Slayers want a sip of the Elixir.
It’s supposed to confer immortality, and it does help a wounded Slayer to heal more quickly than is normal.”
“The Pyr don’t drink it?”
He shook his head, resolute. “It’s evil.” Ginger said nothing. She could believe that. That murky red substance had just looked nasty. “It also gives those who drink it willingly the capability to learn some other powers.”
“Like?”
“Changing into shapes other than dragon and man.” He sighed. “Passing through a dragonsmoke perimeter mark.”
Ginger understood that not all dragon shape shifters found that dragonsmoke burned. “So, why were you there?”
“To destroy the Elixir forever.” Delaney spoke with unexpected heat, his passion for his quest revealed in those few words.
“Why?” He looked at her, all blazing determination, and Ginger felt the urge to clarify her meaning. “I mean, it’s evil, but it seems as if you have a personal stake.”
“I have the most personal stake of all,” Delaney admitted, his voice falling low. He sounded dangerous and deliberate, and Ginger stifled a shiver, even though she knew his animosity wasn’t directly toward her. She didn’t want to see his eyes. “You see, I have tasted the Elixir.”
It was the last thing Ginger would have expected him to say.
Ginger’s head snapped to one side as she stared at Delaney, and she inadvertently jerked the wheel to one side. The truck swerved, skidding on the road, but Delaney reached over and grabbed the wheel, straightening their course.
Ginger told herself that her heart was jumping, because she’d nearly gone into the ditch. She knew, though, that it was Delaney’s proximity that had made her pulse leap.
Never mind his confession. Had she missed something in his explanation? Wasn’t it only the bad guys who drank the Elixir?
Was Delaney a Slayer?
The seductive heat that made her blood simmer didn’t help Ginger to think straight. Even as she tried to make sense of what he had said, she thought of Delaney’s tongue coaxing her response, his fingertips sliding across her breast, his lips against her ear. Lust raged within her. She thought seriously about letting the truck slide into the ditch just so she could jump his bones.
But the other Pyr were right behind them.
Ginger liked a bit more privacy than that.
She swallowed and gripped the steering wheel, telling herself to get her mind out of the gutter. She was in her truck with a guy who could turn into a dragon, a guy who might be one of the bad guys, and all she could think about was sex.
She tried to find a logical reason why Delaney—who she was sure was a good guy—would join the bad guys. “You drank the Elixir to become immortal like the Slayers ?” she asked when the truck was safely back in the middle of the road.
“I was force-fed it, against my will.” Delaney spoke with bitterness.
Ginger was reassured that he hadn’t made the choice to turn bad. “How?”
Delaney frowned. “Let’s backtrack a bit. The Elixir, you see, can raise the dead.”
“Be serious.”
“I am. The bodies of those Pyr who die but are not exposed to all four elements within half a solar day—twelve hours—can be raised if the Elixir is administered to them. They have no souls, because their spark has returned to the Great Wyvern, so their bodies are simply machines. They have no morals and can be commanded to do anything.”
“Ghouls,” Ginger said, negotiating a turn with care. She’d seen lots of late-night movies during her sleepless nights since Gran had died. “Zombies.”
“Shadow dragons we call them. They have memories of their lives but no emotion, no morals, no soul. They’re hard to destroy.” He fell silent then, and she understood that they were close to the nut of the matter.
“That’s why the agate dragon defended the body of the garnet one,” she said, seeing again the sense behind what she had witnessed.
“Yes,” Delaney said flatly. “We would have ensured that Mallory was exposed to all four elements, but Balthasar preferred to protect his body. Mallory’s probably already been given the Elixir.”
He was probably already a shadow dragon.
Ginger shuddered. “Isn’t Magnus dead, though?”
Delaney grimaced. “Probably not. He was close enough to the Elixir that he’s probably had more.”
“And is stronger than ever.” Ginger saw Delaney nod and understood why his mood was grim. “You didn’t finish him off.”
“It was more important to get you out of there.”
Oh. Ginger felt a little tingle of pleasure. Delaney had abandoned his quest to ensure her safety. Even if that made his quest harder in the end, it was difficult not to be pleased by his need to protect her.
She flicked a glance his way and found him frowning at the passing fields. Probably trying to figure out how to save his mission.
She asked a question to get him started again. “How do you destroy a shadow dragon?”
“You dismember him and incinerate the pieces, then scatter the ashes to the wind.” Delaney winced. “They keep fighting, no matter how badly their bodies are injured, so it’s not easily done.”
Ginger drove. She didn’t really want to think about facing a foe like that, one that didn’t lose a step when it was decapitated. They probably had vacant stares, just like the zombies in movies, and were relentless in their determination to fulfill the commands given to them.
How many Pyr had died over the centuries? How big a force of ghouls had Magnus been able to raise?
Ginger chose not to think about it yet.
The snow swirled against the windshield, making it look as if she drove into a screen saver. The road was impossible to distinguish from the ditch, so she just drove in a line parallel to the power lines.
She could see the lights of the rental car following behind them and figured that, if nothing else, the Pyr would be able to pull her truck out of the ditch if she miscalculated where the road was.
Delaney still didn’t continue, so Ginger tried to prod him. “But I still don’t understand how you were fed the Elixir.”
Delaney straightened, as if the memory made him restless. “I was injured badly in a battle and the Slayers took my body so that it couldn’t be exposed to the elements.”
“You were killed?”
“Yes. They imprisoned me and fed me the Elixir, but my soul hadn’t departed my body.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I was an experiment. Usually shadow dragons are made of corpses that the soul has vacated. Usually Slayers who have already turned against the Pyr drink the Elixir by choice.”
“But you were Pyr and still had your soul.”
“Exactly.” Delaney smiled, but there was no humor in his expression. “Which meant the battle that raged within me for dominance over my body nearly drove me insane.”
He glanced down, frowning, and Ginger gave him time to collect his thoughts. His expression was drawn, and she was reminded again of vets who came home from war, not physically injured but not quite the same psychologically as they had been, either.
It was strange that she had initially assumed he was a serviceman. He had the s
ame discipline and drive as men she’d known who joined the military, but was in the service of a different force.
It was still one fighting for good, though.
Delaney continued softly after a minute. “They released me and I thought I had triumphed over the Elixir’s wickedness, but Magnus had submerged commands in my subconscious while I was in captivity. Each time the Pyr fought the Slayers, Magnus triggered those buried impulses and made me act against my own will.”
“That’s evil.”
“It is.” He looked up at her, his expression haunted. “I even tried to attack the mates of my brother and his friend, tried to steal their unborn babies.” He swallowed, the shadows in his eyes more clear than ever. “I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t ignore Magnus’s command.”
Ginger could see how the memory pained him.
She also noticed that none of the Pyr she had met had been introduced as Delaney’s brother.
Ginger frowned at the road. Delaney’s confession made her believe that the Elixir hadn’t managed to turn him Slayer. It bothered him that he had been compelled to act that way.
He was with the good guys.
Her instincts had been right.
Ha.
“Your brother isn’t here, is he?” she asked quietly.
Delaney shook his head. “He doesn’t trust me. I haven’t trusted myself. I don’t want to do anything to Alex or little Nick. It’s been better not to be in each other’s presence.”
Ginger understood that Delaney missed his brother but was afraid of what Magnus had done to him, was afraid that he might be compelled to do something against his will again.
It tore her heart that someone—Magnus—had put this poison in his mind. She reached across the cab and caught his hand in hers, giving his fingers a quick squeeze. He closed his hand around hers, seeming to welcome the sympathy she offered. Those sparks jumped from the point of contact, sending a glow over Ginger’s skin and making her mouth go dry.
Her thoughts headed straight for earthy possibilities, right on cue. This guy had some effect on her libido. It wasn’t a dragon shape-shifter thing, because the other Pyr, while attractive men, didn’t make her heart jump.
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