“What’re ye doin’?” he asked.
“I’m hunting a deer so we have something to eat. I did it before, and we won’t get far without something to eat.”
“How’re ye gonna hunt a deer?” he asked.
“The same way I did before. I ambushed them from a tree over the path, and I dropped down on one of them and killed it with a spear I made. What’s wrong with that?”
He chopped his hand through the air and shook his head. “Naw. That’s no the way tae hunt a deer. Ye leave it tae me, and I’ll get it.”
She rolled her eyes and sat down. “Fine. You wanna play the big, strong provider? Go right ahead.”
She stayed where she was, and he strode off into the forest without a word. What if he still wasn’t strong enough? What if he hurt himself out there and she didn’t know where he was to help him?
She waited. When he still hadn’t returned at nightfall, she built a fire and ate some of the crystalline food she took from the caldera. He didn’t return until long after dark. She was just about to give up and go looking for him when he strode back into camp with a deer over his shoulder.
He slung it over a nearby tree branch. “There. That’s the way tae hunt a deer.”
“Whatever. Are you going to dress it now, or do you plan to leave it until morning?”
“Leave it ‘til mornin’?” He snorted. “It wouldnae do much fer food if I left it ‘til mornin’. I’m hungry.”
She didn’t argue. She took another bite of the crystal and watched him set to work. It took him another hour to skin and gut the animal, and even longer to cook the piece he selected to eat.
He certainly didn’t show any signs of wear from his experience on the mountain. Maybe transforming into a dragon didn’t hurt him any. From the sound of his tale, it happened without any effort on his part. Maybe it was part of his nature he never knew about before.
He finally took the sizzling meat off the spit and tore off a bite. He ate half of it and held out the other half to her. “Do ye want any on’t? Ye’re welcome to’t.”
“Thanks.” She took it out of his hand. The juice gushing down her throat satisfied her in ways she never imagined. That crystal didn’t fill her with the same sense of deep well-being. The meat soothed a hunger she never knew was there.
Robbie leaned back against a rock and gazed into the flames. “Aye. That hits the spot.”
“Hey, Rob,” she began. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Aye? What ha’e ye been thinkin’, then?”
“I’ve been thinking we could get to the castle a lot faster if you flew there.”
His head snapped up. “Flew there! Are ye daft? Ye want me tae turn back intae that thing? I think not!”
“It’s a simple matter of taking the amulet off. You might turn back into the dragon, or you might stay as you are. Maybe you can change into the dragon at will. We’ll never know if we don’t try.”
He shook his head. “I’m no takin’ it off. I dinnae want tae turn intae that thing again—ever.”
“So you would rather walk to the castle? That could take weeks. Your brothers could be in danger. They might need you, and the sooner you go there, the better.”
“Forget it. I’m no takin’ it off. Not now, not ever.”
“So you plan to wear it for the rest of your life? What if you could change at will? You could stay a man as long as you wanted.”
“No,” he snapped. “That’s me last word.”
She let the matter drop, but she didn’t stop thinking about it. What was the point of trudging however many hundreds of miles on foot when he could carry them to the castle in a few flaps of his wings?
She said no more about it, and they relaxed in the firelight. She couldn’t help seeing the amulet there around his neck every time she looked at him. The amulet stopped him from changing into a dragon.
Neither of them mentioned what happened between them at the caldera, either. Neither of them mentioned how she almost did it with a dragon, or how much they both wanted to. She didn’t want to mention it. She didn’t want to remember it. She wanted to wipe that experience out of her mind, but she couldn’t.
The dragon she loved, the dragon she craved and lusted after—it was Robbie all along. Now that she knew, she wanted him even more than before he disappeared. She couldn’t tell him that, though. She couldn’t tell him she saw Ushne when she looked at him.
What would it be like to touch him and caress him and give herself to him, either as a man or as a dragon? They were one and the same. She would be with Ushne when she was with Robbie, and she would be with Robbie when she was with Ushne.
She wanted Ushne more than anything now. She wanted to be with him again the way she was at the caldera so she could show how much she wanted him. She wanted to show Ushne how she wanted Robbie, and she wanted to show Robbie how much she wanted Ushne.
The whole situation confused her beyond comprehension, but there it was, in her mind, and it wouldn’t be denied any longer. She loved two beings who were the same being. She yearned for two distinct men. She loved them in different ways, but how she felt about one fed into her feelings for the other.
She couldn’t tell Robbie any of that. He would never understand. He wanted nothing more to do with Ushne—or whatever the dragon was. He didn’t want to be two things. He never wanted to take the amulet off.
They sat around the fire until late into the night, but they didn’t talk, about that or anything else. They both remembered the time they sat together and almost kissed, but they both pretended not to. Would it always be like this? Would an invisible wall remain between them, forever holding them apart?
Chapter 15
Robbie woke early the next morning and packed up the camp before Elle woke up. He divided the food stores into her pack and made a different bundle for himself to share the load.
He observed her asleep out of the corner of his eye while he worked. What in the name of heaven was he going to do now? The memory of her lying next to him at the caldera gave him no rest. He couldn’t stop thinking about running his neck and body against her, how she sighed and moaned and pressed herself against him.
The dragon that he was burned his soul until he couldn’t stand it. She wanted the dragon. She never really wanted him as a man. That’s why she wouldn’t kiss him in the forest. She took Nerius’s disappearance as an excuse to pull away from him.
He never saw any woman respond the way she responded to the dragon. The whole incident played itself out again and again in his memory, but he couldn’t accept that the dragon was him.
How could a woman fall for a dragon? How could a dragon mate with a human woman? He heard all the fables and legends. He never believed it could actually happen. Now it happened to him. It didn’t exactly happen to him. It happened somewhere near him. It happened to something separate from him.
Just looking at Elle now stabbed him in the guts. He could never get her to touch him and respond to him that way—never! He was nothing but a man. That’s all he would ever be, and she would never stop dreaming and fantasizing about the dragon and her time with him.
He had to get to the castle and rejoin his brothers. He had to find a way to send her back to her own time. That’s the best he could do now. At least then he could forget it ever happened.
She rolled over and blinked up at the trees. She gazed at the sky for a while. Then an ember popped in the fire and her head swung up to stare at him. He sat across the fire from her and whittled a stick with his saber. “Welcome back.”
She sat up and finger-combed her hair into place. “Good morning.”
“What would ye licht tae eat?” he asked. “There’s plenty o’ that crystal stuff from the mountain, or ye can ha’e some meat.”
“Meat. Definitely. That crystal stuff doesn’t really do it.”
He handed her a portion of the meat, but he made sure not to graze her fingers with his hand. Whatever else he did, he had to make sure he didn’t touch her. That would be the en
d of him for certain if he did.
“Thanks.” She started eating.
“What’s yer plan?” he asked. “Do ye plan tae go back up tae the heights and follow the peaks licht Obus told ye tae, or do ye plan to follow the mountains from down ‘ere?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she replied. “What do you think? It seems like a lot of work, hiking uphill and down between every mountain. Walking down here would be a lot easier and lot more direct. Then again, there could be ridges between the peaks, and it would be a more direct route to the castle once we get to the end of the mountain range.”
He nodded. “That’s aboot licht I considered it. I can see the good and the bad in both ways.”
“Then you must see the good of flying there,” she countered. “That would be the easiest and the most direct way.”
“I already said no,” he shot back. “Dinnae tell me yer goin’ tae harp on me aboot that the whole way there.”
“Just try it,” she urged. “Just see what happens when you take the amulet off. I don’t see why you won’t even consider it.”
“I’ll no consider it, so dinnae mention it again if ye ken what’s good on ye. I’ll no fly there nor anywhere else. I’m no dragon and I’ll ne’er be as laing as I can help it.”
“But you are a dragon, Rob,” she pleaded. “Don’t you see? This could be a good thing for both of us.”
“It would be a good thing for ye, ye mean. Isnae that what ye really mean?”
The minute the words fell out of his mouth, he spun away in horror at his own callus behavior. What did he have to go and say something like that for? He never intended to throw it in her face. He meant to keep it to himself for the rest of his days, and now he had to go slapping her in the face with it.
He couldn’t turn around. He couldn’t face her. He couldn’t see the look of hurt and betrayal on her face. She hiked for days to find him at the caldera. She found Obus and got the amulet to save him from his own dragon self, and she never gave up until she got him back.
Why did he have to degrade her sacrifice and her loyalty like this? What kind of dog was he? He didn’t deserve a woman like her. He was a monster and a brute. She needed a man so much finer than he was, and she wouldn’t find it here.
He heard her move behind him. She picked up her pack and walked away into the forest. He clamped his eyes shut until her footsteps faded into the distance, but he couldn’t stop the bile burning in his heart. He hated himself. He ought to let her walk out of his life forever. That would be the unselfish thing to do.
No, the really unselfish thing to do would be to take the amulet off, change into a dragon, and fly her to the castle. That would be the manly thing to do, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Why?
He didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, but the secret squirmed there in his heart. He was afraid. He was afraid to become the dragon. He didn’t want her loving the dragon. He wanted her to love him, and that would never happen. She would never look at him with the naked lust with which she looked at the dragon.
What if he couldn’t change back into a man? What if he got stuck like that? He couldn’t live with himself that way. What would his brothers do when they found out? What if he was the only one of the five like this? He would be shunned and alone.
His heart pounded in his chest. He couldn’t deal with this. He never wanted any of this, and now he was stuck with it. He ached more than anything to go back to the time when he lived with his father and his brothers at their ancestral home, before the wraiths came and the five of them had to leave.
He would never get those days back. He would never again experience the innocent enjoyment of fishing in streams or getting into trouble with Brody and hiding in the cattle shed from his father’s wrath.
He had nothing left—nothing but Elle. She was the only person left who cared about him at all, and she wanted to get to the castle so she could go home. A decent man would repay her kindness by helping her do that.
He whirled around, seized his pack and started walking. He didn’t give himself a chance to second-guess his decision. He had to catch up with her. He had to get to the castle, and he had to get Elle there. Nothing else mattered.
He put aside any notions of something happening between them. Nothing would happen. That didn’t matter now. He had a job to do, and he would do it. He would forget he ever felt anything about her, and he would certainly forget she ever responded to that dragon. It never happened. It didn’t exist.
He shouldered his pack and set off in the direction she went. He took a few hours to catch up with her. When he did, he fell in behind her the way he did yesterday. He didn’t try to talk to her or make up with her.
She stopped at midday, and they ate from their own packs. So what if he hunted the deer they were eating? She could hunt her own just as well. As long as they traveled together, they would share everything.
They walked all day without a word, and when evening came, he lit a fire and they sat in silence next to it. How long could this go on? She would never make the first move. If he wanted this impenetrable silence to dog their steps all the way to the castle, she would go along with it.
She would never yield. One look at her face told him that. He struck the first blow. Only he could rectify the mistake he made, and she wouldn’t help him do it. He let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, Elle. I shouldnae said that.”
She gazed into the flames. “Yes, you should have. You were right.”
“I was?”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned taking the amulet off. I won’t mention it again. You’ll keep wearing it as long as you need to. I don’t care. I’m just glad to have you back. I don’t care how long it takes us to walk to the castle. I like traveling with you. I don’t care about you changing into a dragon.”
He stared at her in shock. “Ye don’t?”
“Of course not. I didn’t know what to do when…. when I found out you weren’t at the caldera. I thought I would give up. Now you’re here. I don’t care about anything else.”
He let his head sink into his hands. “Oh, Elle.”
“What’s wrong? What did I say?”
“How can ye be so good all the time?” he wailed. “How can ye forgive me licht that? Don’t ye ken what it does tae me?”
“How could I know? What does it do to you? What am I supposed to do—not forgive you? Would you rather I stayed mad at you?”
“Aye,” he replied. “I would raither ye stayed mad at me forever.”
“I don’t understand you,” she returned. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Why did ye ha’e tae come and find me on that mountain? Why couldnae ye leave me there tae rot? That’s where I belaing.”
“How can you say that?” Her voice cracked in despair. “How could I leave you there? Obus told me I had to choose between saving myself and saving you, and I had to choose to save you. I was the only person who knew where you were. If I hadn’t come, no one else would have gotten you out. I couldn’t live with that.”
He buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t deal with this woman. She was too fine and good and noble for him. “Leave me behind, Elle. Ye go yer own way and leave me tae go mine. Ye find yer friends, and I’ll find me brothers, and that’s all there is tae’t.”
She stared up at him in anguish. “You want me to leave?”
“I dinnae deserve tae travel wi’ ye, Elle. Ye’ll do much better wi’oot me draggin’ ye back. That’s all there is tae’t.”
“You…. you don’t want me?”
“I dinnae want tae hurt ye licht I did taeday. I cinnae stand tae see ye hurt, and I cinnae stop hurting you. It’s too bad after all ye’ve done fer me.”
She blinked up at him. “You…you want me?”
“Of course I want ye. I cinnae imagine any woman I want more than I want ye, but it cinnae be. I see that now. Ye want summat other than I can e’er be. It’s better if ye go yer way and I go mine.”
“Ye dinnae want no mon,” he moaned. “Ye want the dragon. I seen it in yer face. Ye wanted him more than ye could want any mon.”
She stared at him in horror. Her hands fell off his arm. He didn’t dare look up at her. How could he say those words out loud?
Her voice croaked in a hoarse whisper. “Is that what you think? You think I want the dragon and I don’t want you?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t look at her. She would definitely leave now, but he didn’t care. At least he got it out in the open where they could understand each other.
Sure enough, she retreated away from him. She sat still and stared into the fire. He mourned for what could be, but he had to face the fact. She couldn’t want him as much as she wanted that dragon. It would never happen.
She sat silent so long he gave up entirely. It was all over. She would get up and walk away, and she wouldn’t come back. Yes, there she went. She got to her feet and walked around to the other side of the fire. She stood tall and imperious beyond the flames.
She fixed her keen eyes on his face, and when she spoke, her voice didn’t waver at all. “You are the dragon, Rob. If I wanted the dragon, it’s because I wanted you. If I want the dragon now, it’s because I still want you. It’s part of you, and I want every part of you. Just remember that.”
She walked away into the darkness.
Chapter 16
Elle strode out into the chill forest night. She couldn’t be angry at Robbie after the way he just broke down and admitted what was bothering him. He thought all this time she couldn’t care about him the way she cared about the dragon. He thought she couldn’t want him and desire him the way she wanted and desired the dragon.
Dragon Quest (Phoenix Throne Book 2): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 9
