by Alisa Woods
She’s breathing through her teeth. “Akkan.” It’s plaintive.
“I’m right here.” My body is curled up behind hers, my arm cradling her head. I’m stroking her hair, although I’m sure it’s more comfort to me than her. She shivers then whimpers so softly, I almost don’t hear it. “I’m sorry,” I say. What was I thinking? “I should have waited until you were stronger.”
“I’m… strong.” She’s gritting her teeth and forcing the words through them.
I laugh lightly, even though this is tearing through my heart. “That’s what I told Alice. The witch. She knows who you are, of course, because she paired us. She saw you through our connection.” I’m babbling on, trying to distract her from the pain. “Of course, she hasn’t seen you weather a near-death coma. She doesn’t know you brought yourself back from near-extinction at the hands of the Vardigah. She hasn’t seen what I’ve seen. That you’re not only beautiful and intelligent and wise, but you have this incredible strength of spirit. It makes sense, with all the lives you’ve lived. I didn’t expect that. It’s a gift, Daisy. One I’m so glad I got to see.”
She shivers again, strongly, but then her whole body relaxes. She’s breathing easier now.
“Doesn’t feel like a gift,” she says softly, her head resting on my arm.
“Do you feel better?” I pray the worst is already past.
“Yeah. Almost like…” She wiggles and turns over in the bed, now facing me. Her eyes are shining now, even more bright, and there’s a flush of red in her cheeks. “I feel it rushing through me.” She’s gazing at me in wonder, breathless. “It must be that dragon blood of yours. I haven’t felt this good in… I don’t know how long.”
I put a hand to her cheek. “You’re hot.”
She smirks. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
We’re so close. It takes all my strength not to kiss her. “As in fever.” I frown at the dilation of her eyes. Is this part of the potion?
“I thought you said I was beautiful.”
“You are, but—”
She suddenly sits up in bed. “I feel so… good.” She turns and grips my arm, giving it a good shake. “It worked, Akkan!” Then she’s off the bed and scurrying around her room before I can say anything. I just watch, amazed, as she yanks off her pajama bottoms. She nearly trips in her haste to get out of those, then paws through the bags I brought back from her friend’s apartment. She finds something she likes, pulls it out, drops it on the floor, then lifts her pajama top over her head. She’s nearly naked now, just her white panties barely covering her bottom, her breasts loose, nipples tight with the sudden draft they must be feeling. Or maybe the excitement of the potion. She scoops the pile of yellow fabric from the bag off the floor and works it over her head—it’s a lightweight dress that takes a bit of work to get on. Once her head emerges, she catches a glimpse of me staring.
She freezes. “Oh. Uh… I didn’t mean to—”
“You can undress in front of me anytime.” I give her a slow smile. “It’s a bit much to ask me to look away.”
She scowls at me, but it’s delightfully playful as she works her dress the rest of the way down. Her breasts are now cupped with yellow eyelet, the thin straps over her shoulders holding them aloft in a way that makes me want to immediately free them again. The rest is fitted through her waist then flares out, hanging to her knees. It’s hemmed with ribbon and nearly see-through, but much more innocent and practical than the white one I’d brought her before.
“Where are my shoes?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just digs through the bags some more, bending over to give me a wonderful view, first of her behind draped in yellow see-through fabric and then her breasts suspended once again.
I sit up and scoot to the edge of the bed. “Can I help?” I want to help her out of the dress, but that’s a thought that must remain unspoken.
“Got it!” She’s found a pair of white sandals. She balances on one leg to put them on, and now I’m flat amazed. Just last night, she needed my help to make it to the bedroom.
“You seem like you’re—”
“Let’s go!” She’s racing out the door of the bedroom before I can blink.
Sweet magic. I bound off the bed after her. “Where are we going?”
“Outside!” she sings. She heads to the balcony just off the sitting room.
“Daisy, wait—”
“Oh, my God, it’s wonderful.” She’s already at the edge of the balcony, throwing her arms wide and tipping her head up to the sun. Her eyes are closed, and she’s breathing in the sea air.
I can’t help the smile, even though I’m seriously concerned. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She takes another deep breath then opens her eyes and whirls to me. “I’m fantastic.” Then she takes off again, back into the cottage.
“Daisy, slow down!” I hurry back inside after her.
“Not happening!” she trills as she races through the sitting room and out the front door. Her sandals slap on the stone steps as she takes them, too fast, to the cobblestone street below. I have visions of her tripping and falling and cracking her head on the way down. I dash to catch up to her, and now we’re striding along the sidewalk toward the village, the port on one side and the hillside apartments and cottages on the other. There’s a small pier up ahead, and she makes a beeline for it. There’s no railing or anything, just cleats for the boats to tie up, although it’s empty for the moment.
I’m afraid she will barrel right in the drink. “Daisy!” I say just as she stops at the very edge.
“Look at this!” She throws her hands out as if to embrace the entire island.
“I know, it’s beautiful.” I stand close in case I have to pull her back from jumping in.
She grabs my arm and shakes it for emphasis. The mania in her eyes is infectious. “I feel so good. God, is this your crazy dragon blood? I feel like I’m high!” She’s calming a little, searching my face for answers.
I take her hands in mine. “I guess? It looks good in you.” I smile. This moment is perfect, if crazy, hand-in-hand, standing at the edge of the sparkling water in the morning sun, my soul mate so full of life she’s bouncing with it.
She closes her eyes as she draws in a deep breath and lets it out. When her eyes open, they’re fixed upon my face. “Thank you. Thank you for this.”
“It is entirely my pleasure.” I feel the heat of those words. I see it reflected in the darkening of her eyes.
“How would you have found me?” She’s a little breathless. We’re standing very close. “If the witch hadn’t paired us. If the Vardigah hadn’t taken me. How would you have ever found me?”
I’m not sure if it’s a rhetorical question or not. “I’ve spent the last two decades scouring New York for you.” Longer than that, of course, but that’s the most recent round, when I actually was trying.
“But how did that work? How would you have known it was me?”
I can’t resist. I slide one hand to her cheek. “Whenever I found a woman who was vibrant and amazing—dragon spirited in every outward way—I would seduce her into a kiss. A single kiss, if it were a True open-hearted one, would reveal you to me.” I’m not pulling her closer, but everything in me wants to.
“Would your soul fuse with hers?” She’s not closing the gap, but she’s not moving away from my touch, either.
I can’t help the heat as I peer into her eyes, searching for her soul there. “No. We’d have to make love for that. We’d have to be in love for that, Daisy. A True Kiss is just the first step. The one that reveals what we are.” I hear the aching need in my voice.
She must as well because she reaches for me, her hand on my cheek, lifting on her toes, but she barely gets halfway, and I’m already there. My mouth on hers. My fingers sliding into her hair and cradling her head. My tongue slipping into her mouth. Gentle, at first, then the need is too great, and I have to pull her against me. I’m still half-dressed, my chest bare, and her dress is but a w
hisper between us. I’m already hard, and she has to feel that too, but this kiss is all about cracking open our souls, and holy magic… I feel it. The burning sweetness of it. Two hundred years of need crying out through it. Her hands are hot on my skin, clawing at me as I deepen the kiss and weld our bodies together, as close as we can be while not actually mated. It lasts and lasts, each of us grasping at the other until we have to come up for air. We hardly part, still clinging to each other on the pier, putting on a show for any who might be watching from the shops and boats of the port across the water.
“I feel something.” She’s breathing so heavily, it’s nearly a gasp.
I don’t think she means the hardness of my body. “That’s our soul connection. My soul sees yours. Your soul recognizes mine. It’s your dragon finally coming awake, Daisy.” My heart is brimming—with hope and fear. Can this really be happening? Will the fates yet snatch it from me?
“Yes.” She places her hand flat on my chest. “I feel that too.”
I pull back enough to peer in her eyes. “What do you mean… too?” If she’s talking about our bodies, I’m more than prepared to deliver on the promise mine is making.
“There’s something… more.” She’s frowning at my chest, looking at her hand pressed to it. Then she pulls her hand back to rub against her own chest, right over her heart. “I feel different.”
I still think it’s the soul connection. Some describe it as an awakening, unlike anything else they’ve experienced. My soul is rejoicing with it right now. Surely, that’s what she means.
But when her gaze draws up to meet mine, she looks newly astonished. “I finally know who I’m supposed to be.”
And the bottom falls out of my world.
Because I’m certain she doesn’t mean a dragon’s mate.
Seven
Daisy
Everything is giddy and jittery.
I have too much energy—I nearly trip on the cobblestones on the street. The rest of the way back to the cottage, Akkan holds my hand to make sure I don’t go down.
My body is just reacting to the cascade of things awakening in my heart and soul and mind. It’s so confusing, it’s no wonder my body doesn’t know which way is up. As we hike the stairs back to the cottage, my mind works furiously to settle it out.
My dragon spirit. Akkan said it was awakening, and that kiss—that incredibly hot kiss—definitely cemented that tingly connection we already had. I must have been so bone-weary before that it muted everything. It’s hard to feel attraction when your body is simply wiped out. But the potion from Alice has worked a literal miracle—and my libido is singing along with the rest of me. But the kiss didn’t just wake up the parts now buzzing and hot for Akkan… it woke up something else.
A memory.
Another life.
One I didn’t know I had lived, and if I hadn’t spent tortured weeks with the Vardigah, if Akkan hadn’t already explained what they were, I might have thought I was dreaming.
Because in this past life, I wasn’t human at all.
Akkan pushes open the door to the cottage, his hand still firmly grasping mine, like he thinks I might tumble down the stairs. He brings me inside, but once the door is closed, he wraps his arms around me. It feels incredibly good—safe—like this is the one place in the Universe I could finally call home. Which is crazy because we hardly know each other. But as the memories of that prior life come flooding back… maybe that’s not entirely true.
He pulls back and holds me by the shoulders. “What do you need? Something to eat? Drink?” His words are sweet, but there’s a look of desperation in his eyes. He has to be as confused by all this as I am… but I don’t think he understands what’s happened.
“I think we need to talk.”
He winces but takes my hand once more and leads me to the rattan couch. As we ease down into it, he’s still holding my hand, like he’s afraid to let go. “Alice said the potion had an after-effect—”
“I’m definitely feeling that.” The mania and surge of energy are still running laps through my system.
“It should subside. Maybe this… different feeling will go away.” He seems to hope it will. But he doesn’t understand.
“The kiss triggered a memory, Akkan. Of a past life. One I didn’t know I had.”
“Oh.” His shoulders drop in relief. “You mean before you were my soul mate?”
“Not exactly.” I don’t know why I’m hesitating. He should believe me. I catch a glimpse of my cards, still out from the reading last night. Hermit. Lovers. Death/Rebirth. The Lovers are definitely still in play. Is the Rebirth this new memory? I lean over and pick up the three cards along with the rest of the major arcana. I want to do another reading, but I need to talk this out with Akkan first. I start overhand shuffling just to ease the jitters in my hands. “You’re going to think this is crazy.” I peek up from the shuffle—I have his full attention.
“I doubt it.” He’s completely serious.
“In this new past life, the one I just remembered…” I bite my lip. “I was kind of the Queen of the Elvish people.”
His eyebrows fly up and stay there.
“Not the Vardigah, though. We were called the Dhogerthu—”
“How could you possibly know that?” His eyes are wide. “I… I never told you their name—”
“Because I was their queen.” I stop shuffling and hold the cards in my lap. Will Akkan believe me? This feels terribly important.
I wait.
“I… um…” Akkan rubs both hands over his face as if to wipe away the shock. “Okay. You were their queen?” He’s still wrapping his mind around it.
It’s a lot to take in. I’m still piecing it together, to be honest.
“The Dhogerthu live a long time.” I squint like I’m trying to see back through time into that other life. “I’d lived for a couple thousand years. It was a peaceful time, mostly. The Vardigah were… restrained. That part’s a little unclear. I’m still putting together the fragments. But occasionally, the Vardigah would try some foolishness with the humans—” I laugh a little and lean back, feeling the edges of the Tarot deck. They seem more magical somehow now, almost tingling against my fingertips. “So weird to talk about. But I wasn’t human then.”
Akkan’s shaking his head, but I think he believes me. “The Dhogerthu protected us—the dragons, I mean. I guess the humans, too.”
I dip my head and waggle my eyebrows. “We had to protect the humans. How else would you mate?”
The amazement squishes up his beautiful face. “How did they—you—know so much about us?”
I shrug. That part seems obvious, although I guess I don’t really know the answer. “We’re all connected. All part of the larger magic of the Universe.” This is something I knew even before I had the Elf Queen’s memories. “Besides, it was our sacred duty to protect your kind. My kind. Our kind.” My vocabulary for this is failing me. “What I mean is that we would never let you down.”
His amazement drops into a scowl. “But you did.”
I draw back. But of course, he’s right. “The fire. The Vardigah attacking. Something must have gone wrong.”
“You don’t remember?” He’s intensely interested in this. As he should be.
I squint again, massaging my temple with the hand not holding the cards. “I remember—” But someone appears behind Akkan.
Vardigah.
I gasp and lurch up from the couch.
The Vardigah roars, and a blast of blue fire erupts from his out-flung hands. I shield my face just as Akkan leaps in front of me, but the fury of it still sends me flying back over the edge of the couch, my cards scattering in the air. A louder growl shakes the room. Suddenly, it’s filled with midnight-black dragon. The room is too small for Akkan, but he manages to whirl around, wings battering the walls, blue fire curling over his body. As he attacks the Vardigah, I scramble to my feet and make a run for the door. Just as I reach it, a scream stops me cold. I twist to look, a
fraid of the worst, but all I see is Akkan’s dragon form… and parts of the Vardigah scattered in a quickly growing pool of green blood. Akkan’s form shifts human again, gloriously naked and spattered with blood. But there are burn marks across his back, as well.
He whirls to face me. “Are you all right?” he demands as he lurches across the room.
“Yes.” I’m gasping for air, adrenaline zinging through my body.
Just before Akkan reaches me, another figure appears between us. We’re both taken by surprise. Before Akkan can shift again, another blast of blue fire sends him crashing into the coffee table.
“No!” I scream, lunging to attack the figure from behind before he can blast Akkan again.
He turns—and he’s not Vardigah. Where their faces are ugly and drawn, this one is slender but with an otherworldly beauty. He has the same pointed ears extending above his head.
“My lady?” he asks, in the Old Tongue. The language of the Dhogerthu. Somehow, I understand him. “Is it truly you, Aerendyl?”
Akkan has shifted behind him, a massive force of black scales writhing against the walls and readying to attack.
“No, wait!” I shout to Akkan, my hands out. I lurch between the two of them, a hand out to each. “No more!” I command, my voice rising in power.
Akkan’s dragon form freezes. Then he shifts human again. It spears my heart to see the ugly red gashes across his chest where the fire-magic struck him. And behind me…
I turn to face the Dhogerthu. And now that I have a moment to look upon him… “Giullis?”
He gasps—half joy, half relief. “Praise magic, you’ve truly returned.” His gaze is quick, flitting over the scene, assessing with that rare intelligence I’ve always known him to have. He takes in Akkan’s naked form and the dismembered Vardigah behind him. He extends his hand. “My lady, I cannot protect you here. Return to our realm with your mate, and we might have a chance.”
