by Paula Quinn
“I was driving along this road and I came upon him. His cart had tipped over and all his goods were scattered on the ground. I stopped and helped him and he offered Else to me, explaining that Anja and Birgit already had husbands.”
“What a lovely story,” she drawled, feeling more angry than she had any right to be. “A guy offers his daughter to a man he doesn’t know. So, did you meet her?”
“No.” His smile irked her. He knew she was jealous and he was enjoying it. “I had no desire at the time for a wife.”
“At the time?” she asked, cursing her expectant breath.
“Things change.”
They certainly did. A few days ago she was a normal human being. She hummed along with Mozart for the remainder of the trip, pointing out various wildlife as they went.
As promised, after he parked the truck, he went to her side and held out his arms.
Unwilling to be carried around like a baby, though the idea of being cradled in his arms was not unpleasant, she motioned him to turn around and then hopped on his back, her legs coiled around his waist, her arms wrapped around his neck.
Some folks stared at him giving her a piggy-back around the mall, which, quite coincidentally sported a glass ceiling, but no one said anything. Garion explained that most Norwegians were private and noncompetitive, respectful of personal space. It was one of the main reasons he chose to live here. People minded their own business and didn’t ask questions.
They shopped for two hours, picking up boots for her first, and three other pairs of shoes she had admired.
“I can afford it,” was his only reply when she complained about him spending more on her than what she needed.
He was patient when she tried on a dozen sweaters with different pants, modeling all for him and not taking any of the advice he provided. He liked cashmere and cashmere blends while she preferred chunky cable knit. She made him laugh. Often. And it was quickly becoming the best part of the day.
By the time they sat down for lunch at a café in the mall, he’d spent nearly six hundred dollars on her, not including a five hundred dollar parka.
“If you’re trying to spoil me,” she told him following a brightly dressed waiter to a small table, “you should know that food is the way to my heart.”
He smiled at her. “I’ll remember that.”
He helped her out of her new coat and then proceeded to order everything on the menu, in the spoken language of Nynorsk, no less.
“I can speak every language,” he informed her when she stared at him in disbelief while he spoke to the waiter.
She didn’t believe it. Who the hell could speak every language? “How did you learn all of them?”
“I didn’t learn them,” he said with a shrug that strained the sweater across his shoulders. “I just knew them…like something instinctual, you know?”
She shook her head. No, she didn’t know. There was so much about him no one knew. “What else can you do?”
“Besides, fly, breathe fire, heal myself and others, alter anyone with Drakkon blood, read minds, and make the stars play music when I want to dance? Not much.”
She had to laugh. It was all so unbelievable! But he could do all those things. She’d seen him. She’d heard him.
“What can I do?” She didn’t really want to ask but she should know if people’s thoughts were going to start popping into her head.
“I don’t know how much Drakkon power you’ll possess, Helena,” he told her, reaching for her hand across the table. She let him take it, stunned that his simple touch could still make her tremble. “No one I’ve turned is alive to instruct us. After Marcus was altered into a man, he asked for his immortality to end, so we can’t—”
“Why?” she asked him, cutting him off. “Why did he ask for that?”
“Because he wanted to grow old and die with his wife.”
“How was his request granted? The Phoenix Amber?”
“Yes. It doesn’t work on me,” he added as if reading her thoughts right now. “I tried once, a long time ago when Thomas had the Amber.”
“What did you try to do?”
“Not to be Drakkon anymore,” He smiled at her shocked expression. “I was about seven and I remember wanting to be like my family. Normal. It’s hard when you’re a kid and the only one of your species left on earth.”
He seemed fine with it but it shook Helena. He’d been alone his whole life.
“Tell me about your family,” she said wanting to know more about the man who gave up his immortality for love. “Do you see them often? Is El in England with them?”
His initial hesitation to share anything about them passed with a smile and a deep breath. His trust in her warmed her bones—until she remembered that her Drakkon hunting days were over.
He’d found her.
“Yes, my sister is home. As for seeing them, I visit for holidays, mostly. I used to visit more before Marcus’ castle literally came under siege by The Bane two years ago. The Elders knew Marcus was hiding me. They didn’t let up. I figured it was best to stay away.”
So he basically lost his family because of what he’d done that night.
He told her about Ellie and that he’d visited her in New York two months ago. He shared memories with her of growing up with his sister and of his father, who was not too long ago, Drakkon. And his mother, who had always encouraged him to hold himself to the highest standard of moral code—even after his night of terror.
Helena smiled, thinking she would like Samantha Montgomery. “I must thank her for that if I ever meet her. I...” She shifted in her seat and looked around for the waiter. Where was their food? “…I actually met your father once, during that siege you mentioned.”
“You were there?”
She nodded, and then looked up at the waiters when they finally arrived with trays laden with various cheeses, meats, and breads…and wine. She sighed and cursed him again when he asked the waiters to take back the wine. It was poisonous to Drakkon, of which she was now one.
“We were camped just outside of the perimeter of the castle, looking for any sign of you,” she began. “Marcus came upon my group and took down seven men with nothing but his hands. When he stood before me, bloody from the faces he’d pummeled, I thought I was next.”
Garion shook his head. “My father would never—”
“He didn’t. He just looked at me with these incredible, merciless, blue-green eyes that almost made me pee my pants. He told me if he saw me again, he’d kill me. Scary guy.”
“He can be,” Garion agreed. “But he’s harmless, really. All bark, less bite.”
They talked more over blessed coffee and a slice of delicious, Cardamom cake. Helena told him about growing up in boarding schools with Jacob and how she’d often gotten into trouble because of him. And then later, when they lived with Hendrick and Jacob had become even more defiant. “He was unhappy and hid it behind a façade of carelessness. He hasn’t really changed.” Hell, she’d always known. He never seemed to be satisfied with life, as if something was missing for him. She pretended to believe the façade rather than look the truth in the eye. Her brother had a Drakkon heart. “I need to talk to my brother.”
“We’ll load up the bags,” Garion promised, “and then go find a public phone and call him.”
When it was time to leave, the waiters packed up four packages for them to take, including five pounds of coffee, for which Garion paid one hundred dollars.
“Is coffee that expensive here, or did you bribe them?”
He smiled then winked at her. “We needed coffee and you seem to like this brand well enough.”
She could have kissed him for being so thoughtful. Had she forgiven him?
Newly dressed, Helena didn’t need him to carry her back to the truck but when she saw the freshly fallen snow outside, she looked down at her new boots and then hopped up onto his back.
When he turned slightly, barely a stumble at her unexpected weight, she smiled
. “My boots.” She held out her legs to show him. “Hand me that bundle from the café with those pretty biscuit things,” she pushed up and leaned over his shoulder trying to see into the bags he carried.
“The Skolebørd?”
She glanced at him. “Okay, sure.”
He held up his arm so she could rifle through the seven bags he carried in that hand. When she couldn’t find them and asked for his other arm, he strode toward a six-foot mound of shoveled snow and dumped her in it.
She lay there for a minute as disbelief turned into laughter. She gained her feet in no time, swiped the snow off her backside, and took off after him.
He’d dropped the bags in the snow sometime after he’d dropped her and then ran off.
She saw him duck behind a parked car. She hurried toward it and, without making a sound, lifted herself up on the trunk. Her heart beat frantically with the thrill of finding him and taking revenge.
He was crouched on the other side, waiting… She laughed silently into her hand and then lifted her arm to swipe all the accumulated snow from the roof and dump it on him.
She squealed with laughter, forgetting everything else while he shook the cold powder from him like an angry cat. She screamed a moment later when he appeared over her. He used his body to hold her securely atop the trunk while he held a large handful of snow over her face.
She warned him through tight lips not to do it, but he sprinkled some on her and she laughed and wriggled beneath him to be free. She tried to hold him back but when he dropped the snow and dipped his mouth to hers, she didn’t resist.
She molded to his searing, hot mouth, his tight body nestled between her legs. He tasted like desire and decadence. His tongue licked like a silken flame. His body tightened under her fingers. He pulled her up closer and closed his arms around her. She felt like she was falling, plummeting to the ground, but he was there to catch her. Enveloped in his arms, exploring his mouth, his body, nothing else mattered but him.
“Ehm,” Someone cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt but I’ll be needing my car.”
They broke apart and smiled, both appearing equally affected by their kiss, each offering apologies to the car owner. Helena’s lips still tingled as she slipped off the trunk and made her way back to the bags. Garion followed her, still smiling.
“Are we even then?”
He nodded and began picking up bags, neither one of them bringing up the passionate kiss they had shared. What was there to say? She’d never been kissed that way before and she was sure she wouldn’t be kissed that way in the future unless it was Garion kissing her. She wanted more, and that was why she had to keep resisting him.
She helped with the bags and was rewarded by finding the package of Skolebørd, that she began eating on the way back to the truck. Oh, what kind of custard delight was this? A sweet bun filled with raspberry jam and the most heavenly custard. The treat was topped with icing and grated coconut.
“Oh, Garion!” she said, handing him her bags to unload into the truck. “This is the best thing I’ve tasted yet.” Besides you.
He turned to her and smiled. I heard that.
She blushed and pushed him away. He didn’t even flinch. “Stop that, and try one of these!”
They found a public phone and made an overseas call to Jacob.
“Can’t you speak to him telepathically?”
“No,” he told her while Jacob’s phone rang in her ear. “There’s a maximum range of roughly two thousand miles.”
“Weird,” she said to him, then smiled when her brother picked up. “Jake, it’s me.”
“Helena! Where the hell are you! Gold contacts me—as a Drakkon—in my head and tells me you were shot and then I don’t hear another word for two days. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’ve—”
“Where are you?”
“Norway, in the Børvasstindene Mountains. I’m okay, Jake, really.”
“Shit, you’re in trouble,” he breathed out. “You’re in trouble, Helena.”
Her heart pumped hard, sounding in her ears. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“What happened?” Garion tugged on the sleeve of her parka. She shook her head and held up her palm.
“The police are looking for you,” her brother told her. “They found your cell in Garion’s penthouse and they want to bring you in for questioning. There’s more. Aldric and Jarakan are in New York looking for you, as well. You know they have connections in the NYPD. They’ve seen the phone. They’ve seen the pictures you took of Garion.”
Her face drained of what little color she had. She looked up at Garion and bit her lip not to cry. What had she done?
“Helena?”
“Yes,” she answered her brother numbly.
“There’s more.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jeremy had transformed. Garion’s heart rumbled in his chest. He set free another Drakkon and this one was dangerous. This one could never be trusted. Garion had been careless with his blood. He should have remembered that he’d been stabbed by Helena’s gold knife. His blood had spilled. I should have killed him.
He was your friend, he heard Helena’s soothing reply in his head.
Was.
Garion still couldn’t absorb the full impact of Red’s betrayal. They’d grown up together. Red knew his family. Hell, Garion needed to call his father and make sure they were all safe.
Does he know about the villa? Helena asked him.
His heart sank and his blood boiled. He’d trusted Red. Yes, he knows.
“He got what he wanted,” Helena pointed out in a calm voice. “He has no reason to come looking for you.”
“I was the only one who could turn him and I’m the only one who can stop him now.”
“What are we going to do?” Helena asked, waiting while he dialed his father.
“We’re going to go home and if he shows up I’m going to kill him.”
She waited while he spoke to his father and then his mother. His family was safe. Both were worried about him, especially after he told them what had happened and that Helena White was with him. When Ellie got on the phone insisting that he let her come to Norway, it took him at least fifteen minutes to convince her to stay where she was.
They rode back to the villa, checking the sky on the way.
Even if Jeremy didn’t turn up at the villa, Garion knew he had to find his old friend. Red wanted to rule the sky. It was more difficult to do alone, but he could still enact enough destruction to bring The Bane back in full force. He didn’t want to kill Red but the fool was going to end up dead when the Elders discovered he was flying. The Elders. They were the ones Garion needed to deal with. Thanks to photos on Helena’s phone, they knew what he looked like. They knew he was alive and would double their efforts at finding him. And because of him, Helena was in grave danger, too.
He wanted to smash his fists into the dashboard. He wanted to rain fire down on them and end the hunt for him once and for all. He wanted to live…to live with Helena in peace.
When they reached the house, Garion carried the bags inside with her.
“All this glass won’t keep out a Drakkon,” she said, looking around. “Do you have any gold weapons?”
“I have me,” he told her. “That’s all the weapon I need.”
He went to his study, a cozy room toward the back of the villa. In it were lighted paintings from Van Gogh, Monet, and Rothko and Garion’s favorite treasure, his Charles Hollander chess set, with three hundred and twenty-five carats of black and white diamonds. But the true treasure, the only one like it in the world, was in his safe. He went to it, entered the combination, and pulled out a large, black stone. The seeing Onyx.
“Are these real?” Helena asked breathlessly, studying the paintings.
“Yes.”
“Your hoard.”
He looked up from studying the Onyx and smiled at her. Then, he set the stone down on his desk. The Onyx was part of Thomas’ treasure le
ft to him. It revealed the location of any Drakkon in the sky. Red was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he wouldn’t come, preferring first to wreak a little havoc, as he liked to do as a man.
Garion left the study and went to the living room to look out the windows at the vast expanse before him. He should have stayed hidden, away from the world. Helena would still be human and Jeremy wouldn’t be a Drakkon. He turned when she came to stand beside him.
“I’m sorry for everything,” he told her, returning his gaze to the mountains. “But I would do it again to save you.” When she moved closer, he took her hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“I know,” she answered softly.
He smiled against her knuckles. “Have I regained your trust then?”
“That depends.” She graced him with a playful smirk. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
His smile faded. Hell, he should have told her sooner. How would he tell her now?
Sensing his unease, she pulled her hand free. “What? Are you kidding me, Garion? What else? What more can there possibly be?”
He stepped away from the window and away from her. “It’s about our fathers.” He raked his fingers through his hair and gathered himself before he spoke again. He should have told her sooner but he would never put his father in danger. But he trusted Helena…and more. “Marcus was Drakkon. He’d been Drakkon for centuries, but a man for only, I don’t know, a month maybe, at the time.”
“At what time?” she asked on an uneven breath, wrapping her arms around herself. Garion longed to comfort her. He’d brought danger, fear, and uncertainty into her life and he wanted to make it right. But how? He had to begin with the truth.
“When your father took what belonged to him. When he kidnapped Marcus’ wife…Marcus’ treasure. She was everything to him and he would have given anything to save her. But he refused to give me.”
#
“There was one very big obstacle in the way,” Garion continued. “Simion the Red. Marcus couldn’t fight Simion as a man…so I—”
