Perhaps it was just being back in her house, with her blanket and her hot chocolate, but she was feeling slowly as if life was seeping back into her.
“Why is that?” he asked stiffly. His dark, silky-looking hair was matted with snow. She wanted to reach up and rustle all the snow out of it, take him inside, and warm him up.
But he reminded her somewhat of herself. A wounded animal that had to be approached carefully.
“I just… If you wanted to break in, you already could have done so. If you were bad, like the other shifters,” she said, initially trying to convince him but realizing as she said it that it was true.
He relaxed slightly, and when his face wasn’t hard and defensive, and his normally narrowed eyes softened in confusion, he looked almost… beautiful?
In that exotic, male way and only if you ignored his hulking, cut body.
Pure shifter.
A little shiver of fear went through her again, but she pushed it away. After what she’d been through, she wasn’t sure anything could scare her like that again. Except the thought of being forced to go back there. And this man would make sure she didn’t have to, hopefully.
“D-definitely. I w-will,” he said, shivering slightly as a new gust hit them. Then his eyes widened, and he cursed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I will not read your mind again. I am a bit… befuddled by the cold and had forgotten to put the block up.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she said, grabbing him by the arm, surprising herself with her willingness to touch, and pulling him inside the house.
He was surprisingly solid, and he resisted at first, but then, almost as if he was afraid of hurting her tiny human grip, he acquiesced and came inside the house, shutting the door behind him.
She rushed to a nearby couch and grabbed a thick wool blanket and threw it over his shoulders, reaching up on tiptoe to do so. Then she pulled him over to the couch and sat him down, rubbing the blanket over his head to remove the snow as he sat there quietly.
“You shouldn’t be taking care of me,” he said firmly. “It should be the other way around.”
She sighed. “I can’t help it. I’m a nurse, after all.”
“Ah, a female doctor?”
She squinted at him. Was he mocking her?
“I’m sorry. This is my first foray into the human world. I still may get things wrong.”
“Nurses can be male or female, and we assist doctors,” she said. “Comfort and care for patients, do the dirty work, as it is. Most of the work to be honest.”
Arsenic nodded. “Sounds like a noble profession.”
“One second, I’ll get you some hot chocolate.”
“Excellent,” he said, his voice firmer now, though still wavering slightly. “I enjoy hot chocolate. Not when I make it, but still…”
He was relaxing into the couch, making her living room feel much smaller with his presence, when she came over to him with an oversized mug of steaming cocoa.
He took it gratefully and sipped it as he studied their surroundings. He was quiet for a moment, then spoke up. “Are all human dwellings small like this? It’s quite cozy.” He nodded to himself. “And no room for more than one dragon, which I approve of most highly.”
She snorted. “You speak so differently sometimes.”
He wrapped his hands around the mug as if absorbing the heat. “I am still adjusting to this world.”
“That’s right. The oracle said you came from another planet, and…” She trailed off, remembering that she didn’t want to know any more about these dragons than she had to.
Because she was going to forget all of this.
He watched her intently, waiting for her to continue her hanging sentence. All snow had melted off of him, leaving him with the look of someone fresh out of a particularly bleak shower.
His hair was wet and waved slightly in tendrils around his handsome face, and those curious eyes that held almost an innocent quality to them studied her as if she were the most interesting thing in the universe.
“I admit I wish I could read your mind right now, although I agreed not to.”
“Good,” she said, folding her arms and taking a seat in the chair by the window where she could still keep an eye on things. She had a hyper-awareness now that she felt would never leave her. “If I want you to know something I’m thinking, I’ll tell you.”
Arsenic gave her a nod and went back to innocently sipping his cocoa.
Innocent? She let out a scoff. She’d seen him take down a few dozen dangerous wyverns and werewolves, some of them with his eyes literally closed. How had he done that?
“Do you really feel safer with me here?” he asked, setting the cocoa on a table by him. “If not, we can call someone else in. Perhaps a female dragon, like Marina, though she’s very busy, and her mate would have to come anyway… and he’s much worse than me personality wise.”
“No, it’s okay,” Farrah said. “You’ll do.”
He raised an eyebrow, and his tone was wry. “Oh. Well, thank you for saying so.”
She’d ruffled him again. She tried not to laugh but failed, having to lift her cup for another sip to hide it.
He still looked over sharply. “What is so funny?”
She set aside her mug again and rested her hands in her lap. “You’re just nothing like I thought.”
“What did you think I was?”
“That you’d be like… like the others.”
“How so?”
“That you’d… force me to do as you wanted, push me around, treat me like I’m worth less than you, like I shouldn’t have a say in anything that happens to me because I’m a human.”
Nic snorted. “Never. I am here to serve you, not the other way around. If anything, shifters have the highest regard for humans. For the most part, you seem to be good-hearted.”
“That is a very naive way of thinking about it,” she said. “Humans can be awful, too. They just don’t have as much power.”
“Perhaps I have been biased, in that the only humans I have met are the mates of my dragon brothers in the Drakkaris guard. They have been kind, wonderful women.”
“Mates?” Her heart shuddered at the word. She’d heard Crios use it often… as a threat.
“Do not worry,” Nic said solemnly. “The oracle has stated already that you cannot be a dragon’s mate. She has stated that you want to erase your memories and want nothing to do with the shifter world.” He raised an eyebrow. “Though, I’m not sure I would agree with such a notion.”
“It’s not for you to agree with,” she said snippily. He didn’t have her dreams, her nightmares, the feeling of something burning under her skin any time she remembered her captivity.
“If we forget the past, are we doomed to repeat it?”
“You think I’ll manage to randomly get kidnapped by evil shifter scientists when they are trying to capture someone else again?” She sipped her cocoa and put it back. “I doubt it.”
He crossed one leg over the other, leaning back nervously. “I suppose I simply can’t imagine giving up any of my memory. Losing any data points that might help me in the future is untenable.”
“Well, when you have been through what I’ve been through, maybe you can say that.”
He cocked his head, eyes narrowed. “And what have you been through?”
She was suddenly angry at his presumption. She’d let him in, helped him, talked to him and been willing to not treat him like the monsters who’d hurt her, despite him having more in common with them than her.
And here he was thinking he could judge her, her wants and needs, her decisions based on her experiences.
Screw him. Him and anyone else who ever thought they could make decisions for her or even have any input on them.
“Listen,” she said, crossing over to him while still keeping a safe distance. “If you’re going to stay here, you don’t get to invade my privacy. You don’t get to ask invasive questions, and you don’t get to judge what I wan
t. You don’t need to know me, and I don’t need to know you, because despite what you think about ‘data points,’ I don’t think there is anything useful in what I’ve just been through. And I am going to forget it as soon as I can.”
With that, she whipped her blanket tightly around her and headed for the stairs. “You can have the couch.” When she was halfway up the stairs, she sent him a glare over her shoulder. “And don’t bother trying anything, because I’m locking my door. And I… I’m sure the oracle will be watching if I scream for her.”
He gave her an appraising look, his jaw jutting slightly, the expression in his eyes cold and hard. “You may not believe this because of your low opinion of shifters, but I have never been anything but honorable every single day of my life, and I don’t intend to change that now.”
Looking into his solemn green eyes, God help her, she believed him.
“Okay,” she said. “Then I will see you in the morning.” She paused, putting her hand on the bannister. “And thanks… for coming with me, Nic. I appreciate it, even if I’m… hard sometimes.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, but she could tell that deep down, he was still pissed.
She supposed he had a right since she’d just insulted him, told him that she didn’t trust him and didn’t want to know him and would forget him.
But what did it matter if she did? He was just a shifter, a part of a world she was never meant to collide with.
A world she would soon not know existed at all.
Chapter 7
Even as consciousness was just starting to filter into the darkness of his sleep, Arsenic was aware of the feeling of someone watching him.
Not a professional, not even a particularly dangerous presence.
Still, he snapped into a standing position right where he’d previously been lying and stumbled due to the unexpected softness of the couch beneath his feet.
His dagger was in his hand before he could even take in his surroundings and calm down somewhat.
A small human house. A comfy house. The last thing he remembered last night was listening to the howling wind outside as he made sure the barrier he’d placed all around the house was holding.
He’d been oddly upset about Farrah’s insistence that she only wanted to forget him and his entire world.
Farrah.
He turned, slowly blinking, to the small human who was cowering back, staring at his knife.
Her pretty, oddly colored red hair was tufted in different directions, looking playful and clean. She was still painfully thin, and he hated the look of fear in her luminous blue eyes. But he had to admit she looked much better after a night in her own house.
Maybe this was truly the world for her after all. For some reason, it caused a deep ache inside him. It was worse than the homesickness for his world, worse than the feeling he always had of being out of place and apart from other beings.
It was… longing. For something impossible, surely.
He pushed it away as easily as he sheathed the dagger in his jacket and sat cautiously back down on the couch.
He put up both hands, showing he was harmless. “Sorry. I forgot where I was. Usually, waking up to someone watching you is a very bad sign when in the field.”
She flushed slightly as her elfin face relaxed. “Oh. I… I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to know if you wanted breakfast.”
“You can cook?” He cocked an eyebrow.
She nodded. “I mean, just simple things. I’ve been on my own a good while, so I hope so.”
“And you already cooked?”
“French toast and eggs,” she said. “I’m not sure how, but the fridge was totally stocked.”
“The oracle works in weird ways,” Nic said, sitting up fully and stretching. “None of us really know the extent of her powers. We’re basically servants and not even from his planet, so…” He trailed off, frowning as he remembered her words from the other night. “Ah, I forgot. You don’t want to know anything about me.”
She folded her arms a little tighter and met his eyes bashfully. “Maybe I was a bit harsh. After all, what does it matter if we get to know each other a bit? I’m going to forget anyway.”
He resisted the urge to grit his teeth that came every time she said that. Instead, he gave a grin he was sure was more frightening than reassuring, despite his best efforts. “It’s fine.”
“Um, well, should we go eat, then?” she asked.
Her face was almost elfin, wide and open, tapering to a delicate chin. Her lips were wide and generous, her cheeks naturally slightly flushed. If she’d been a black-and-white sketch the night he’d rescued her, today she’d been filled in with soft watercolor hues that brought her to warm life.
“Yes,” he said, trying not to startle her as he stood and followed her into a kitchen that was, once again, small and modest, like the living room.
She served up their plates and put his on the table in front of one of the chairs, which he took. He picked up the fork and ate quietly, grateful that he’d had time to learn human manners.
A part of him felt a bit cocky that he was the first dragon of Drakkaris who got to go outside the mansion. Would Cobalt or Chromium be granted the same when finding their mates?
Then again, Arsenic wasn’t allowed to find his mate.
“Nic?”
Arsenic was so deep in thought that he didn’t register that Farrah was calling him when she used the shortened form of his name.
“Nic?”
He jolted, looking up quickly. “Yes?”
“Is that really your name?” she asked, leaning against the counter with her plate, standing there as if reluctant to fully join him.
He frowned, wondering if truth was the best option here. But he really did feel incapable of such a petty lie. “No. My full name is Arsenic.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and he realized her eyelashes were unbelievably long, giving her a look not unlike one of the Earth deer he sometimes saw darting around outside the mansion.
It made all of his protective instincts stir to life, and he had to focus to keep his scales from breaking through his skin.
She was in no danger. She just seemed to have an overly strong awareness of anything out of place. Like she was always afraid but hiding it sometimes better than others.
“We thought, since it’s the name of a poison, that we should shorten it.”
“Arsenic isn’t… bad,” she said, not at all convincing.
He frowned. “Really?”
She snorted. “It’s a little intimidating. Why are you named that?”
“Long story,” he said. “And I’m not sure you want to hear it. I can get used to Nic.”
“Are you poisonous?”
Very. “Not to you.”
“That’s all I need to know.” She sank into a chair across from him, and his soul let out a sigh of relief. “Would you like me to call you Arsenic?”
He thought about it a moment and realized he liked having a name that was solely used by her. “Nic is fine.”
She brightened slightly. “Okay, then.” Her eyes looked past him wistfully at the snow-covered landscape outside. “I just realized it’s Christmas Day, isn’t it? I missed everything…”
Once again, her pain felt like a dagger someone had thrown straight through his weak spot.
“What do you mean missed everything?”
“My house is the only one without lights. Tomorrow, everyone will take them down. It’s hardly worth it. Besides, it will only remind me…” She pushed her plate away, barely touched. “Perhaps it’s better there’s nothing to remind me of Christmas. Perhaps it’s better to think time hasn’t passed at all.”
He eyed the plate irritably. She was painfully thin, and she would weaken considerably if she did not replenish her strength.
“It is not too late,” he said. “We can get a tree. Presents. Lights even, if you want. I don’t think you should ignore something that brings you joy. If anything, I t
hink you deserve even more of it than ever.”
She thought about it for a moment, eyes downcast. Then she took a steadying breath and met his gaze, smiling warmly. “Maybe you’re right. This is my life. I have it back. I should live it as usual.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Get a tree,” she said. “I don’t need presents or lights, but I think having a tree today would give me at least a taste of Christmas.”
“Then we’ll get the biggest tree possible,” he said, standing. “Or, well, the biggest that will fit in your living room.”
“Great,” she said. “And thank you, Arsenic. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.”
“Nic,” he said. It was his new human name. It made him feel as though he actually belonged in her world, even if temporarily.
Even if he wanted this to be his home, against all odds, and only barely knew her at all.
“But first, you have to clean your plate,” he said, glaring at it expectantly.
She flushed. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m your guard,” he said. “I don’t want to guard someone so weak from anemia that if I tell them to run, they can’t even do that.”
“I can run,” she said stubbornly, looking at him with anger that only made her slightly more adorable.
“Not for long,” he said. “Replenish your strength. You have been a prisoner of war, and now it is time to treat your body better. The way it deserves.”
She sighed, looking down at the plate and resentfully stabbing a piece of French toast with her fork. “Fine. You have a point. I hate eating, though.”
Once again, he wondered what had happened to her in captivity. He thought of the cookbook in his backpack, the one Chromium had given him.
Perhaps, for her, he would actually use it. After all, he had no desire to watch this little human make the same kind of horrible choking and gagging expressions that his dragon teammates had in response to his recipe-less cooking.
Maybe by cooking, he could help nurture her back to life. He oddly liked the thought. He filed that away in his list of things to do, and decided it was time to take his backpack upstairs for a shower.
Arsenic Dragon Page 5
