by Bianca D’Arc
“What?” she challenged when he didn’t go on right away.
“I was going to say, not necessarily. There are stories from the past—not that distant a past either—that say both of those now-mythological creatures once existed. And, they were shapeshifters, living their lives in two forms. Human and the creatures that shared their souls.”
Syd sat back in her chair. “Seriously?”
She looked so adorably confused, he wanted to reach out and kiss her. Hmm. Now, that was a thought. A strange thought to have about a woman he’d only just met by pure chance.
Or, had a really been mere luck that had drawn his attention to her car far below? Or, had the Mother of All had something to do with it? She had been poking Her divine nose in his affairs, for a while now. Paul might have a somewhat uneasy relationship with the Goddess, but he revered Her as a being of ultimate Light, and Paul served the Light—and Her—though he didn’t always have the same kind of reverence toward Her as many other shapeshifters did. They probably thought of him as irreverent, if not downright blasphemous, but he and the Lady had come to a sort of understanding.
Maybe She had decided to push him in the right direction once again. If so, he was obliged for Her help, though on occasion, he had discovered that when She pushed him in a particular direction, it was more for Her benefit than his own. He would end up helping people that She wanted helped, whether or not they could contribute to his ongoing quest.
Paul didn’t really begrudge any of those people he had helped in Her name. They were uniformly good souls, who had deserved the assistance he had rendered. If he’d come across them any other way, in all likelihood, he would have done the same thing. It was just that gentle nudge from above that sometimes annoyed him. He didn’t like feeling as if he was just another tool in Her arsenal. Another agent to be set a task.
No, he had his own task. His own quest. He wanted Her help with that, but She was somewhat stingy with her help in his quest to find his parents—or others of his kind. He didn’t even know if he was the only one left. In all his years of searching, he had never come across another dragon shifter. The closest he had come was Peter and his babushka up in Grizzly Cove. They, at least, had dragon blood, but they were both bear shifters.
“Tell me why I saw you talking with dragons,” Syd said, out of the blue, recalling Paul to their conversation.
“Wait. You saw what?” He held his breath, waiting for her answer.
“You were in a cavern. A glittering gold cavern, and there was a man, who was also a dragon. He was golden in both forms, and I saw his image superimposed, one on top of the other, both translucent. He was both dragon and man.”
“A shapeshifter,” Paul breathed as she met his gaze, shaking her head in wonder.
“You were talking to him, and other dragon heads popped up behind him all over this enormous cavern, as if they were waking up. Interested in what was going on. In what you were saying to each other. I thought, last night, that it was some sort of warning about going into the mountains. That you could face dangers there that might kill you, or something.”
“Or, it could mean exactly what it looks like. I might find a nest of dragon shapeshifters in the mountains. But where?” Paul tried hard to hide his eagerness but knew he was probably failing. “Did you see anything to indicate where this cavern might be?”
“Are you telling me that you’re seriously going to go out looking for a cave full of dragons?” She looked frightened, if he was any judge. He didn’t know what to tell her, without revealing his own deepest secret.
“And if I said I was?” he asked instead of answering her question directly.
“Then, I’d say you were crazy. Who goes out looking for dragons? Don’t dragons eat people? Do you want to get fried?” She sent him a disbelieving look. “What do you think they will do to you if you find them? They must be hiding in the mountains for a reason, and I bet they don’t want to be disturbed.”
“They may not wish to be disturbed, but I have been searching for them most of my life. I must seek them out,” he told her. “Do you have any clues about where to look?”
Syd shook her head. “All I saw was the inside of the cavern. I have no idea where it’s located or how to find it.”
“But it was gold, right? So, an abandoned gold mine?” Paul asked, excited by the idea of a fresh clue in his quest. Maybe the Mother of All had done him a good turn this time, making his path cross with this particular nascent witch.
“There are rumors of abandoned gold mines all over the mountains,” she told him. “Or it could be some sort of natural deposit nobody ever found. The mountains around here aren’t exactly friendly to human exploration.”
“Leave it to me,” he told her. He wouldn’t repeat his claim about not being human. No sense riling her even further.
Paul had a hard time containing his glee. Syd had just given him the first real hope he’d had in a long time. Certainly, finding Peter and his babushka in Grizzly Cove had been a high point, but they weren’t dragons. They might be family—distant family—but their dragon blood was too diluted to allow them to shift into dragon form.
Syd had talked about seeing multiple dragons in her vision. One golden dragon—probably the leader of the nest—and several others behind him. The description of what she had seen lit a fire deep in his belly. A fire filled with hope that he might not be the only dragon shifter left on Earth. He might finally find others like him. He might finally not be all alone.
Syd’s stomach picked that moment to growl. She hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, and it was well past dinnertime. She got up and went in search of her cell phone, finding it on a kitchen counter, near the landline extension. Her brow furrowed. She hadn’t left it there. Which meant…
“Those bastards were doing something to my cell phone.”
Paul was beside her a moment later. “I doubt they had time, but just to be safe, I wouldn’t use it if I were you. We can get you a replacement tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can use mine.”
She turned to him, feeling suddenly fragile. She’d held up pretty well until this moment, but she was tired and hurt, and hungry. It all just crashed in on her, and she reached out to him.
He didn’t let her down. Paul took her into his arms, and for a moment, she felt safe again. As if nothing could hurt her, as long as he was here.
It was silly, really. She’d only just met the man. She shouldn’t have this level of trust or comfort with him so soon, but those instincts that had never steered her wrong were insisting that he was safe. A port in a storm.
“It’s okay,” he told her, speaking softly, making her feel that it really was going to be okay, regardless of the turmoil her visions showed.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a while, trying to move back, out of his embrace. He let her go just so far, making her meet his gaze before he’d let her go entirely.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, honey,” he told her. “You’re the victim here.”
He held her gaze until she nodded, then he gave her a small grin that seemed to lighten her from within. He let her go, but the connection between them felt like it had been forged in iron and would never break now. He’d touched something deep inside her with his care, and she knew in her heart that, regardless of what kind of magic he carried inside him, he was a good man.
“Now, what did you want the phone for?” he asked gently, reminding her of what had brought her to this point.
“I’m hungry. How about you?” she said, reaching for a flyer she had kept on her fridge, held there by a magnet from the nursery where she worked. The paper was a menu from a local restaurant. She ordered delivery from them every once in a while. Particularly when she’d run out of groceries and didn’t have time to shop.
The irony that she’d been to the grocery store only this afternoon wasn’t lost on her, but those groceries had been for Arthur. For her own supplies, she shopped in a store closer to home, so the perishables w
ouldn’t spoil due to the hot temperatures that were common in this town.
She handed the menu to Paul. “Anything on there appeal to you?” she asked. “You’ll stay for dinner, right? I mean, that’s the least I can offer you for all you’ve done, but I don’t have any supplies in the house and don’t really feel like cooking anyway. So, let’s order in, okay?”
Paul dipped his head in a very old-world way. “I’d be happy to join you for dinner, but I insist it be my treat.” He held up one hand when she would have argued, and she gave in. Another time, she would have fought with him about it, but not tonight. She’d been through too much today.
They spent a few minutes talking over the menu and various dishes before arriving at an order, which he called in on his cell phone. While he dealt with the dinner order, she went into the bathroom and took a look at the cut on her head as best she could. It hurt like a bitch, and it was on the side where she could just about see it but not really treat it. Damn. She’d need his help again.
Not that he hadn’t been really kind to her, but she hated feeling so helpless. Syd wasn’t normally dependent on anyone. An orphan from an early age, she’d been on her own most of her life. She’d had foster parents, but they had been distant—mostly because she had been a prickly kid who didn’t trust easily, and whenever they lied to her, she’d known. She could never fully trust people who lied to her, and without trust, the relationships had never grown.
Feeling frustrated tears gathering behind her eyes, she put both hands on the edge of the sink, just willing herself to calm down. It didn’t really work. She wanted to cry, rage and scream for everything that had thrown her off balance today, but she held it all in.
That was when Paul appeared in the open doorway, his handsome face holding an understanding expression. She almost lost it then, but she held strong. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t be weak.
“Can I help you with the head wound? It’s in a tough spot, isn’t it?” he asked, moving farther into the small room.
“Yeah, I can see it, but not well enough to clean it up.” She let go of her death grip on the sink and sank down to sit on the lid of the closed toilet. The guest bathroom wasn’t big, and Paul took up most of the space just with his presence.
He took the wet washcloth she held out and moved closer. When his hand touched her head, there was no pain. His fingers were gentle on her scalp, and he warned her when he was using the washcloth and kept up a running commentary on what he was doing and how the wound looked.
“It’s just a small cut, really,” he told her. “It’s already scabbed over, so I don’t think we should try to put a bandage on it. Maybe some of that antibiotic ointment would be a good idea, though.”
She directed him to the medicine cabinet and helped him pick the proper tube. She thought about a bandage, but the cut was right in the middle of her hair. Anything adhesive would be a problem and she didn’t feel like going around wrapped up in gauze like a mummy. He put the ointment on and helped her part her hair a bit differently, leaving the cut exposed, then tied it back with the hair band she’d had in her pocket.
“Now, just hold still for a moment,” Paul said, raising his hand to hover just over where she’d been clobbered. His gaze was intent on the spot.
Syd frowned. She felt a tingle, and then, she saw something. A kind of glow going from his hand to her head. Magic. Had to be. Because, as he held his hand there, the pain subsided little by little. It still hurt, but a lot less by the time he moved his hand away.
“That’s enough for now, I think. How’s it feel?” he asked.
“A lot better,” she told him, amazed at the casual way he’d just done that.
“All right, then,” he said. “You’re good to go.”
Paul’s gaze met hers in the mirror, and the moment froze. She should be thanking him—yet again—but she couldn’t get the words out. So much had happened between them in such a short time. She felt she knew him well, even in the space of the few hours since they’d first met. He’d come to her rescue more than once, and though she’d helped him by giving him a ride, she knew he’d done way more for her in that span of hours than she had for him.
Somehow, though…it didn’t matter. He wasn’t keeping score. She could tell, though how she knew, she wasn’t entirely sure. He was just that kind of man. He went out of his way for others and didn’t expect anything in return. A kind soul.
The doorbell rang, breaking the spell.
“That’ll be the food. I’ll get it,” Paul said, leaving her with seeming reluctance.
She was glad for the interruption. She was perilously close to losing all sense of reason around him. She had never met another man like him. He was strong, more honest than most, and had already rescued her twice. Not a bad record for only a few hours.
He was also drop dead gorgeous. There was a sort of nobility about him that she sensed in every act. It was innate. Something he’d been born with, and that would last through his whole existence.
Maybe it had something to do with the magic he claimed to have. She wasn’t sure. She shouldn’t really be thinking of him in these semi-romantic terms. Not until she knew what it was that was so different about him. She wanted desperately to know what it was that made him claim not to be human.
He’d hinted at being some sort of shapeshifter. Mind-blowing as that idea was, Syd found herself accepting it more easily than she would have believed just a few months ago. Of course, she hadn’t been entertaining visions until recently and hadn’t really thought much about magic or clairvoyance until it had started happening to her.
She heard him moving around in the main area, so she got herself together, took one last look in the mirror and headed out to join him. Her head still hurt a bit, but it was so much better than it had been before he did…whatever that was he’d done. One thing was certain, whatever kind of beast shared his soul, it had to be a powerful one.
Chapter Five
Paul had wanted to kiss her so bad, but it was too soon. Way too soon.
The way his magic had touched hers… It had felt almost inevitable. He hadn’t felt a magic that complemented his own so well in all his years. Yet, her magic was nascent. Almost completely hidden, with only the slightest bit working its way out here and there.
No wonder someone who could sniff out magic had reported her to the AC—or whoever those home invaders had been. She must have been having moments of clarity when her power was leaking out all over the place—probably as she was actively having a vision, as she had in the car, earlier—then it all went under wraps again.
That was why her magic had confused him. It had almost escaped his notice completely, but it was there. And it was powerful. Very powerful.
Maybe even a match for his.
He retrieved the takeout food from the delivery person and locked the door after, adding a little zing of his magic to ward the entry. He’d go through later and put more powerful wards on all the windows, and maybe take a tour around the property and scribe a circle of protection around it. As a witch with unreliable powers, Syd would be most vulnerable until her magic manifested fully and she was able to use it more constructively.
Paul intentionally made a bit of noise setting out the bags of takeout, wanting to put Syd more at ease. He wanted to put her at ease because he had no intention of leaving her alone for what remained of the evening. If he couldn’t convince her to let him sleep on her couch, he had every intention of finding a place outside, perhaps in her yard, or maybe even on the roof, from which he could watch over her.
It didn’t sit right with him that she’d been reported to the Venifucus when she was at such a vulnerable point in her magical development. It would be just like that evil order to seek out magic users as they developed, either to recruit them or eliminate them as possible future threats to their agenda.
Syd appeared a few moments later, and they spent a quiet half hour eating dinner and exchanging the barest minimum of small talk. Paul knew, re
gardless of the magical treatment he’d been able to administer to her head wound, it still had to hurt. He also knew she had a lot to think about. The poor woman had been through a lot in the past few hours. He let her take her time. He didn’t want to push her too hard, but he would finagle a way to stay in her house tonight, if at all possible.
When it finally came down to it, he didn’t even have to broach the subject himself. Syd asked him to stay over before they even finished eating.
“You haven’t arranged a hotel room yet, right?” she asked out of the blue. He admitted he hadn’t with a shake of his head, and she plowed right on. “I know my couch isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it’s a small house, and I don’t have a guest room. You could take my room, I guess—”
“The couch is fine,” he cut her off as politely as he could. “Thank you for offering.”
As the evening went on, Syd didn’t bring up any of the topics Paul expected. He’d thought she’d grill him about magic and shapeshifters and particularly what kind he claimed to be, but instead, she kept the conversation to light topics. His travels, the foods he’d grown up with and the foods he liked here, and those she thought he should try.
She told him about her job at the plant nursery and how she loved working with growing things. She talked about the various kinds of plants that her company specialized in—those native to parts of Mexico, South America, and the American Southwest. She gave him her view on desert landscapes and the unique properties of the mountains around here as compared with the ranges farther north and west.
He was somewhat fascinated by her knowledge of the local flora and conditions in the mountains that he now knew he would have to search carefully. She’d seen dragons in her vision. If, as he suspected, she was a nascent witch with the gift of foresight, just coming into her powers, then he had to give at least some credence to what she’d told him. He’d have to look for his brother dragons there as best he could. For that was his quest. He had traveled the world over, searching for other dragons, and now…finally…it looked as if he was on the right trail.
