Several moments later, Xavier deposited her at the bottom of the gigantic nest he’d built out of pine longs. He’d lined it with moss and grass to block out the draft and soften the wood. Circe crouched against a sloping wall, watching Xavier settle into the nest across from her.
She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her forehead between them. She wouldn’t let herself cry again. No. She wouldn’t cry. But none of her tough attitude helped. Tears pooled in her eyes. Weakness, fatigue, fear, and frustration pushed her to her breaking point.
“What do you want?” she screamed.
The dragon shifted, leaving a man at the other side of the nest. He looked at her coolly, his blue eyes stony and reptilian.
“What do you want!” she screamed again.
He crossed the nest in several quick strides and grabbed her wrists, pulling her to her feet. She struggled against him, but even at full health, she would be no match for his strength. She whimpered and looked away. He put his hands on the side of her face and caught her eyes with his gaze. He held her so that he could stare into her soul.
Circe gasped. She could sense something terrible was happening inside of him. She felt her knees buckle, and she wilted to the bottom of the nest. He came down with her, his hands still on her cheeks. She pushed him away, and this time, he relented.
As she crumbled to the moss and grass, Xavier shifted and flew to the edge of the nest to perch, looking away from her. The sky had turned deep blue as the sun moved toward the horizon. The already-cool air turned even cooler as the sun set. The drying sweat on her skin made her shiver, and the fever she’d had since Xavier had first touched her seemed to intensify.
She held her knees tight against her chest, trying to conserve her body heat. Fear that her fever would worsen while she was exposed to the inhospitable elements drifted through her mind.
As night fell, Xavier settled into the nest beside her, breathing his steamy hot breath over her frigid body. Sleep overtook her, but she slept fitfully. Wild dreams writhed before her eyes.
Visions of reptiles eating insects. Worms. Vile creatures. Falling. Falling like a stone over the edge of a cliff and then being deep under water. So far under water that the light could not penetrate. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swim to the surface. Suffocating, drowning.
Circe shot awake with a gasp. The night sky hung heavy with stars. The waning moon was still nearly full, illuminating the darkness inside the nest. Xavier’s head nestled into the moss and grass, and his gigantic chest rose and fell with steady, even breaths.
He must be sleeping. Circe turned to the wall of the nest and looked for a handhold through the thick layer of moss. She pressed her fingers into the lichen, feeling for the place where the logs met. The moss had been packed too solidly. Each time she thought she’d found a handhold or foothold, she fell back to the floor.
In frustration, she retreated to where Xavier’s exhalations heated the nest. She slumped down and tried to make it through the dark night.
Four
She woke to the feeling of Xavier’s claw clutching her midsection. She screamed in surprise as he hefted her aloft and out of the nest. Hovering a few feet above the ground, he gently set her on the other side of the meadow near a small pond then flew away.
Circe gawked at his quick departure. Is he letting me go? Her fever had broken, and she felt nearly recovered from the metamorphosis sickness. She wondered which of her powers she still retained. She’d been able to contact her spirit guide, but her grab spell had disappeared.
Part of her wanted to run, but with her mind clear, she thought differently about running. Xavier hadn’t harmed her. He’d had some kind of metamorphosis of his own, and he was doing what he might do for a dragon mate. Misguided as it may be, something that Circe hadn’t seen before was going on.
She walked over to the pond and knelt beside it. She hadn’t had hydration in far too long, but drinking the murky pond water would definitely have made her even sicker. She decided to test her magic to see if she still had healing power.
She dipped her cupped hands into the pond and brought up a handful of water. She ran two seconds of healing energy into the liquid, leaving it perfectly clear. The witches had used the trick to clean their water back in Arizona. She scooped and cleaned water until she had sated her thirst. Fortunately, her healing power was still intact.
She looked down at her stinging wounds, knowing they needed attention. Dust and blood caked her body, and she was in desperate need of a bath. She stripped and stepped into the chilly pond. With one quick plunge, she submerged herself. Coming up, her hair streamed down her back, and the dirt washed from her skin.
She rubbed her eyes and wiped her body with her hands until the majority of the blood and dust was gone. Stepping out of the water into the warm sunlight, she inspected the wounds on her torso, legs, and feet. Gathering the healing energy into her body, she directed it through her hands and placed them on a deep scratch across her stomach.
Moments later, she lifted her hands to find her skin stitched back together without even a scar to show it had ever been broken. She smiled. Healing was indeed a strong power.
After she healed her wounds, she picked up her discarded robe. It was nearly useless as clothing since Xavier had torn it and left bite holes through it. She dipped it into the water. Might as well wash it since it’s all I have to wear. After dunking her torn robe several times, she rang it out and hung it over a bush.
The gnawing hunger in her stomach intensified. She hadn’t eaten in nearly forty-eight hours. A trout jumped to catch an insect on the surface of the pond. Circe narrowed her eyes on the water. In Arizona, she and her sister witches used their grab spell to catch whatever wild game they wanted—rabbits, fish, boar, and even big-horn sheep. Without the spell, she had no idea how to get the fish out of the water.
Circe crept forward into the pond, and crouching, she dipped her hands below the surface. Every step she took muddied the water. She frowned. This will never work. She wandered around to where the creek fed the pond. The water ran fast and clear there. She could see fish flit in and out of the channel.
Planting her feet on either side of the creek, she waited, watching, ready to strike. A fish wriggled toward her feet, and she shot her hands into the water, slapping them together with a splash. She came up empty, wet, and frustrated.
She would need other tools to make this work—or a lifetime of practice. She stepped out of the stream and headed back around the pond to where she’d left her robe. It was partially dry, so she slid it over her head and down her hips.
The shadow of Xavier’s form blotted out the sun and stretched over where she stood. His massive wingspan hovered a hundred feet above. The sight of him made her heart race, and she instantly regretted not running away.
As he landed, she gulped, reminding herself that there was something important to learn here. Her previous fear and insecurity had largely been a product of shock and the metamorphosis illness.
He settled in across the meadow, near the nest. As she approached, she watched him drop something from his massive jaw. When she drew closer, she could see it was a freshly killed deer.
Circe stood in front of the kill and put her hand on her hip, examining the carcass. How in the world am I going to butcher this thing, let alone eat it?
Xavier drew up on his hind legs and retracted a claw, slicing the deer down the middle. He continued cutting out choice bits and placing them on a patch of plantain. Circe smiled at him and hurried to the forest to gather firewood.
“I’ll be right back,” she shouted behind her.
In the forest, she quickly gathered armfuls of kindling. Glancing through the trees, she watched Xavier working on the deer. Curiosity had overcome fear. She had to know what had happened to them both and why.
She hurried back to Xavier with a bunch of sticks gathered tightly in her arms. She set them down and began breaking branches and placing them in a pile. Under the sticks,
she placed a handful of dried pine needles, leaves, and twigs.
Sitting on her knees, she took a deep breath and concentrated on bringing the correct energy to speak the fire incantation. The words came from deep in her belly as she recited the spell that her sister witch Vesta had written. When she opened her eyes and snapped her fingers, a spark of fire flamed in the kindling.
She clapped her hands in excitement. She could still do a fire spell. It had come out weak, but she’d made fire. She breathed a sigh of relief just as Xavier reared back his head and blew a torrent of fire down on her pile of sticks.
Jumping back in shock, Circe fell on her butt and scuttled away from the fire. Xavier’s dragon face turned to her. He tilted his head, and she was sure he raised his eyebrows and smiled. She burst out laughing, looking from him to the fire then back again. He made a little grunt and hung his mouth open like a panting dog.
Gathering herself, she stood and walked toward the dragon. Humor had knocked loose the tension of the last few days. She knew she’d felt some connection to Xavier from the moment she’d laid eyes on him several days ago. After they had both been transformed by a mere touch, that connection was undeniable.
She crossed the distance between them, and he hung his head to face her. Raising her hand slowly, she caressed the side of his face. His scales were smooth and warm. She’d expected the opposite. He seemed to melt with her touch, seeking to deepen the caress by pressing his neck inside her arm.
Her hand slid over his neck and down the coiled muscles of his reptilian body. A shiver of excitement, or fear, filtered through her as she dragged her fingers down the scales on his side.
He made a sound like a cat purring and puffed steamy breaths into the air before drawing back to look at her. Circe felt mesmerized by the glistening orange scales and his brilliant blue eyes. With Circe’s fingers still touching his torso, Xavier shifted into human form.
She found herself gripping his tight waist. Xavier’s eyes shone down on her like dazzling blue suns. He was naked and aroused. His blond hair hung in waves down his shoulders and fluttered in the breeze. His hand went around her waist, and he drew her to him.
His erection pressed against her stomach, and she gasped. Electricity radiated between them. Circe could feel something shifting. Some kind of magic whirled around them.
“Xavier,” she whispered, not knowing what to do. Part of her longed for his touch. She had been cloistered with her sister witches for so long, and male company had been a rarity. Has Xavier come back to his senses? Can he even speak?
“Hungry,” he said in a guttural tone, turning away. It was the first word he’d uttered since before they’d touched the first time.
She watched him shift into dragon form and eat down everything but the steaks he’d cut for her. Circe cringed while he gulped up the innards. It was not an attractive sight. Clearly, Xavier had not come back completely.
Five
Circe finished cooking her venison steaks, ate, and saved the rest for later. Xavier bathed in the pool in dragon form, chasing trout and sloshing the water onto the shore as if the pond were an overfilled bathtub.
She smirked and raised an eyebrow at his antics. He’d spoken to her. At least they were making progress. He’d scarfed down deer intestines right afterward, but at that point, Circe wasn’t too picky.
Rather than interfering with this bath, Circe decided to explore the woods for more resources. She didn’t know how long she would be stuck with the barely vocal dragon shifter, and she was used to eating a wide variety of wild produce.
Turning on her heel, she strode toward the forest. Under the shadow of the canopy, she inhaled the invigorating, crisp earthy scent of pine needles and the green spicy scent of juniper berries. She stepped on the loamy earth, enjoying the new environment. Years in the desert had attuned her to the arid region, but the moist mountain forest gave her a new energy she’d missed in the desert.
She walked through the underbrush. Xavier had dropped them in a place with a great deal of old growth. She studied the plants, opening her eyes and mind to her witch’s intuition. All witches could work with medicinal and edible wild plants; it was part of their power. But somehow, the plants seemed to call out to her in a whole new way.
Suddenly, the forest around her was alight with an inner glow. She could read the auras of the plants as she passed them. Information downloaded into her mind. She somehow knew the names for these plants. Latin. Native American. Common English.
She knew what they had been used for in the past. Their medicinal properties. Their nutritional properties. Their magical properties. Chemical compounds. Scientific extraction methods. The information was almost too much to bear.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to focus on one plant at a time. She saw a stand of elderberry. She knew it was useful for fever. It could be eaten, extracted, and used as a purgative. She blinked. The bark could be used to aid in metamorphosis and regeneration.
Perhaps it could help Xavier move through whatever process their touch had begun. She didn’t understand why he had regressed to behave like a typical dragon shifter——mindless, inhuman, and violent. He was coming through it, though, and she intended to help him.
Her own powers had transformed, as well. Perhaps Xavier would be different, stronger somehow, once his metamorphosis was complete. He hadn't seemed to suffer the fever and sickness as she had. But he was still suffering.
She scraped some bark from the tree with a rock and cursed. With no supplies, she couldn’t boil the bark in water to make him a tea. Circe had become used to living with nature, but she and her sister witches had enjoyed all the comforts of home in their cave. It had been a pleasant, civilized life. Being out in the forest with Xavier was anything but pleasant and civilized.
Deciding to make do, she gathered the bark in her short robe and made her way back toward the meadow, gathering miner’s lettuce along the way.
She turned around a towering lodgepole pine and stopped in her tracks. A woman with bark skin and pine needle hair stood before her. Circe’s eyes widened. Visitation from a dryad was rare.
The dryad’s body seemed to sway in the breeze like a loose assortment of parts. Circe cleared her throat and smiled, thinking of something appropriate to say.
“Witch”—the dryad spoke like the rustling of falling leaves—“the price of the dragon’s touch is a reward. You seek your destiny. There it lies.” She swept her hand toward the meadow where Xavier lay sunning himself in the grass. “He was dryad born. Cleansed of the mind sickness that plagues his kind. But together, you can be so much more.”
“More how?”
“His kind must be healed.”
“What about Xavier? Is he going to get better?”
“Better, stronger than before. With you. But there is so much more.”
“More how?”
The dryad’s body began to dissipate; light shone through holes in her form. She dissolved into a mass of bark, twigs, and pine needles that blew away on a phantom breeze. Circe stood motionless for a moment, staring at the space where the dryad had been. Well, that was cryptic. Did the dryad want her to heal all the dragons in the world?
Dragon shifters were notorious bastards. They were nonverbal, violent, and destructive. Xavier was an anomaly among his kind. What had the dryad meant when she said he was dryad born? At least Circe had some idea of how to heal him. If only she had a pot.
She strode back through the woods with a new resolve. It gave her the same sense of purpose she’d had when working with her friends.
Thinking of her friends traveling onward without her gave her a sinking feeling in her stomach, but she carried on toward the edge of the forest. She had a new quest. She had been given her calling, and she would accept it.
Suddenly, her friend Cassie’s astral form descended in front of her, taking Circe off guard.
“What happened?” Cassie asked.
“I’m not sure. Xavier touched me, and we both c
hanged. I was very ill yesterday and have become more human. Some of my strongest powers are gone, and I seem to have gained some others. But he-he seems to have lost his humanity. He’s keeping me here. I don’t know why, but I intend to help him.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“No. You have your own battle to fight. This battle is mine.”
“Circe.”
“Cassie. Go.”
Cassie’s astral form shot up into the air and flew away. Circe felt regret at watching her friend leave. She did want to help Cassie, but the dryad’s message had made it very clear that Circe’s place was with Xavier.
As Circe emerged from the forest and stepped into the meadow, Xavier rolled onto his feet then trotted toward her. She stifled her panic at seeing the massive dragon approach. The sight of his teeth alone should have sent her screaming. Instead, she smiled at him and walked out to meet him.
“Xavier, I think I have a cure for your metamorphosis illness. The only problem is, I need a pot to boil it in water.”
Xavier’s body contorted in the wild dance of a shift. It happened so quickly, the contraction of his massive body into a human one seemed to happen like a film going at a hundred times the normal speed. He stood before her, naked and magnificent, with a questioning expression on his face.
“What?” he managed to say with a guttural grunt.
“This elderberry bark should help. It has magical qualities that will purge the metamorphosis illness. I was sick, too, yesterday. I’m better now. But while I was sick, I wasn’t myself. And I don’t think you are, either.”
“No,” he growled. Without pausing, he grabbed the bark and threw it in his mouth. He crunched down on the hard wood, and Circe could see he half shifted his teeth to make it possible to chew. The bark must have tasted awful. She flinched at the idea of its bitterness on his tongue.
She raised her eyebrows and smiled expectantly. He swallowed, with a great deal of effort, and grunted again. Circe examined him, waiting. Nothing happened, and she shrugged, sighing.
Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 54
