“The memories will come back.” He hooked his hand under her arm. “I’ll walk you to the door and maybe you can ask Magnus now.” Thorn lowered his voice as they started toward the door. “I don’t think your brother likes me too much.”
“He’s protective of me.” She turned her face to Thorn. “Did anything happen between you two before I woke up?”
“Aside from me spying on them?” Thorn whispered in her ear.
“You might have some bridges to rebuild,” she answered. “Perhaps if he sees how happy I am he’ll forgive you.”
“Are you happy?” Thorn asked, suddenly serious.
Emilia stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. “Yes. Yes, I am. At least I’m as happy as I can be given the circumstances.”
“Emilia,” Magnus called from the front porch. “Is everything all right?”
Emilia swung back around and let go of Thorn's hand as she ran to her brother. “Yes. But we have some questions for you.”
“The bear wants to ask the dragon some questions, does he?” Magnus looked down on Thorn. It appeared Thorn wasn't the only one feeling threatened.
“No, the dragon wants to ask the dragon some questions,” Emilia told him bluntly as she poked him in the chest. “There are some things I cannot remember, at least I cannot remember the details clearly.”
Magnus’s expression changed to one of concern. “Are you unwell?”
Emilia shook her head. “No, I just feel fuzzy, certain details are vague.”
“Like what?” Magnus asked, taking hold of her hand as he studied her face.
Thorn watched the display of affection and his opinion of Magnus shifted subtly. He cared about Emilia, he cared about her a great deal.
Of course, he does, he’s her brother, a man who was willing to allow himself to be put under the Ancient Slumber spell, so his sister would not be alone. His bear huffed. Perhaps if you had a brother or sister, you would understand more.
Perhaps I would, Thorn agreed. His views on the relationships between brothers and sisters were formed when his best friend at school, Charlie Harper, got into trouble when his sister told on him. She’d seen Charlie sneak out of his room to join Thorn at a party by the creek one midsummer night. When Charlie’s parents told Thorn’s mom and dad, he’d gotten in trouble, too, and so the idea that brothers and sisters were too much trouble had been born.
“Can you remember anything about Chin, the Oriental gentleman who visited Perry? He was here about a month before it happened.” Her eyes implored Magnus to remember anything that might help them.
Magnus caught hold of both her hands. “Ruby already asked me. You think he is the person who cast the spell?”
“It is possible,” Emilia told him. “Do you remember?”
“Chin Shan,” Magnus said firmly. “His name was Chin Shan.”
“Are you sure?” Thorn couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.
“Yes, Perry used to call him Chin Shin behind his back.” Magnus let go of one of Emilia’s hands. “He never spoke to me. Most of Perry’s friends treated me as if I was…not an equal, but they were always courteous if not a little reserved. But Chin Shan was different.”
“He knew, didn’t he?” Emilia whispered the question, her voice taken away by the realization that the man who cast the spell was known to them, walked amongst them for weeks before he cast the spell. “He knew we were dragons even then.”
“Emilia.” Magnus paused, unsure how to say what he needed her to hear. “I believe Perry might have known we were dragons before the stabbing.”
“Before the stabbing. How?” She covered her mouth and pulled her hand free of Magnus’s and walked to the edge of the porch, looking out toward the dense forests. A breeze ruffled her hair and the clouds skittered across the sky, while on the porch time stood still. At last, she turned back to face them, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.
“He said something to me. When you were recovering. It never made any sense at the time.” Magnus looked down at the well-worn timber covering the porch and scuffed it with his foot.
“What did he say?” Emilia asked, her voice deathly quiet.
“One night, he got drunk and was rambling on about how everyone he knew had a side they hid from the world. Our innermost secrets. Deep, dark ones that lingered on our souls. He rambled on about how if he could make a person truly love him, they would show him their secret side.” Magnus shrugged. “The next morning, he laughed it off. And I had drank much of his wine, too, and since he never repeated those words or made any attempt to win your affection, I let it go as the rambling of a drunkard.”
“He set up the stabbing? Is that what you are implying?” Emilia asked, shocked at this new twist.
“I now believe that he set things in motion, yes. I believe he or someone else knew we were dragons. Before our mother died, when we flew over the mountains, anyone could have seen us.” Magnus shrugged again. “Or not. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Emilia answered honestly.
“I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ll try to dig deeper into Perry’s journals.” Thorn spoke to Magnus, hoping to unite them in this common goal. “Do you remember anything else? Did you see him with the amulet?”
Magnus huffed out a breath. “If I did, I would have told you. It is not the kind of thing you forget.”
“Magnus, Thorn is doing his best to help us,” Emilia told her brother bluntly.
Magnus dragged a hand through his hair. “I apologize.” He straightened his back and spoke directly to Thorn. “It’s difficult to relive what happened. Knowing that the scoundrel who did this was right under our noses and I did not sense him… I failed you, Emilia.”
“No one failed me. None of us are to blame. It has taken me a while to understand that. But now I do. Perry planned all this. And it doesn’t matter how he found out about us being dragon shifters, he is the one who acted on that information.” Her voice was hardened steel as she spoke. “I’ll see you later, Thorn.”
She kissed him, her body tense, and he longed to grab hold of her and soothe away her fears. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Does it matter?” Magnus asked suddenly. “Do we need to dredge up the past? Chin Shan is long dead, so is everyone else who was involved in the whole sorry business.”
“What about the amulet?” Emilia asked. “Don’t you want to know where it came from?”
Magnus sighed. “I want us to enjoy our lives with our mates.” He took a ragged breath. “But you’re right. Only because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else again.”
“I agree.” Thorn stepped off the porch. “The more facts we have, the less chance this will ever happen to you or our children. Or our children’s children.”
Emilia smiled softly. “Go. Do what you do best, Thorn Manning.”
Thorn turned and strode back to his truck and swung into the driver’s seat. Then he backed around and drove away from his mate. Thoughts warred in his head for prominence. Part of him wanted to dwell on the loss of leaving their mate behind, the other part of him wanted to figure out the mystery of Chin Shan. And he was certain there was a mystery around the man from the Orient, but more than that, Chin Shan was the key to the what happened to Emilia and her brother. And so was the amulet.
Chapter Twelve – Emilia
“How are you, Emilia?” Magnus’s voice was soft and unsure as they walked a trail through the forest, a forest filled with birds singing and the breeze ruffling the leaves of the trees.
Emilia turned her face to the sun as it shone down through a gap in the branches. Small things, sights and sounds, stopped her from believing she was still asleep and this was a dream. In dreams, she had always been one step away from everything; here, she was completely in tune with the world. “I am good. A little disorientated but that’s passing.”
“It takes time,” Magnus agreed. “And just when you think you’ve gotten used to this new world something else is revealed. Like a
irplanes and skyscrapers.”
“Skyscrapers?” Emilia’s imagination went into overdrive. “They have machines that can scrape the sky?”
He chuckled, a sound that warmed her heart like the sun warmed her face. “No. A skyscraper is a tall building, taller than anything you can ever imagine.”
“As tall as the mountain?” Emilia asked, her gaze resting on the highest peak that loomed above them as they sat down by the edge of a stream that tinkled like silver bells on its way down the mountain to join Bear Creek.
“No, not that tall.” Magnus picked up a small stone and threw it into the water where it broke the surface with a satisfying plop, before disappearing. “We can have a good life here.”
Emilia studied her brother. He looked older than she remembered, the creases around his mouth deeper. They had aged during their sleep. Maybe not as quickly as the world around them, but time had weaved its own spell on the dragons. “You do not want to know what happened?”
He sighed and threw another stone into the water. “It’s in the past.”
“Magnus. What’s really wrong?” Emilia asked gently. They had lived their whole lives together, experienced the same loss, but here by the stream, under the warm summer sun there was a distance between them. Magnus was holding something back.
“I should have seen it coming.” His words were blunt, but emotion caught at his voice and broke it. Anger simmered under his skin and she sensed his dragon close by, ready to leap out and destroy the world around them. “I should have protected you.”
“I was not yours to protect. I’m not a wilting wallflower.” She punched him in the arm. “I should have seen the way Perry looked at me and realized sooner he was not content to be friends. He played me like Ole Man Partridge used to play the fiddle.” She took a deep breath.
“And I should never have made you promise to not shift. I should never have made you stay.”
“Emi, it wasn’t your fault.”
“If it wasn’t my fault, then it certainly wasn’t your fault.” She liked practicing this new way of talking, she wanted to blend in with this new world. “You wanted to spread your wings and fly away. I should have let you, instead of burdening you with guilt.” She lay back on the springy grass and looked at the sky. “I should have gone with you and soared above the clouds by your side. We are dragons.”
“No regrets.” He stood up suddenly and walked to the edge of the stream. “Does any of it matter now that we both have our mates and a chance at happiness?”
“And the amulet?”
Magnus inhaled deeply and released his breath in a huff. “I’ll tell Thorn everything he wants to know. Not that there’s much to tell.”
“He’s a good man, Magnus.” Emilia pushed herself to a sitting position. “You’d like him if you gave him a chance.”
Magnus swung around to face her. “I’m sure I will.” A sad smile flickered across his lips. “Perhaps it’s the thought of not being the most important man in your life. It’s like I’m losing you all over again and I only just got you back.”
“Magnus.” She stood up and went to him, hugging him close. “You are not losing me, you never will. The bond between us was forged in pain and sorrow and love. Now that we have new bonds, the old ones are not broken.”
“Do you remember our mother?” Magnus slipped his arm around his sister’s shoulder and held her close just as he had the day they said a final goodbye to their mother. Only this time they were not clinging together through fear and sadness.
“Yes. I remember her love, I remember how she wanted us to find true happiness. And I remember her strawberry jam, made from the wild strawberries she gathered from the hedgerows.”
He chuckled, it was a good sound. “We used to spread it on bread fresh from the oven. No matter how many fancy dishes we ate at the houses of the rich, nothing ever tasted better than fresh bread and jam.”
“Do you think they are together?”
“Who?” Magnus looked down at her.
“Mother and Father. She missed him so much and knowing how strong the bond is between a dragon shifter and their mate, the thought of Father without Mother takes my breath away.” She placed her hand on her chest and forced the air into her lungs.
He took a step away from her and looked up at the sky through the canopy of trees. “I like to believe they are flying together in some kind of heaven.”
“Me, too.” They stood in silence as the clouds floated above their heads, pushed along by a summer breeze, and the sun shone down on them as it had shone every day since the earth was made. Hot and eternal, just like the love between a dragon and his or her mate.
“We should go. Ruby will be worrying.” Magnus turned them both around and headed back along the trail.
“Does she think you cannot look after yourself, brother?” Emilia teased.
“Not in this world.” He chuckled. “Give me a horse and wagon over those mechanical beasts any day. I miss the slow pace of our world.”
“Is there nothing you like better?” Emilia asked as they walked together back down the mountain.
“TV.”
“What is T V?” she said the letters slowly.
“Television. A box that projects pictures.”
“Pictures of what?” Emilia asked, intrigued by her brother’s excitement.
“Anything. Everything.” He waved his arms around wildly. “Dinosaurs, sea creatures, space.”
“Space?”
“Yes, the cosmos. The planets and the stars. Do you know humans have walked on the moon?”
“That is made-up fairy tales,” she scoffed.
“No, it’s true. In our time it would seem like witchcraft. Now it’s called progress.”
“In our time.” Emilia shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. I just hope I can catch up with nearly four hundred years of progress.”
“You will.” He paused and then said, “What are we going to do about our treasure?”
“We need to move it or block the cave more permanently.” Emilia looked down at the clothes she wore, bought by Ruby. “Or spend it.”
A sly smile crept across Magnus’s face. “What would our father say?”
“Or mother.”
“You know she thought that the treasure was evil, that we were better off without it,” Magnus told his sister in a conspiratorial voice.
“No, she never said that to me.” Although Emilia could hear it in her voice whenever their treasure was mentioned. They were seldom allowed up the mountain to even look at it, let alone bring any home to ease their poverty. Even after her death, they had not touched it, more out of a loyalty to their mother’s wishes than anything else. Then they’d met Perry and Magnus’s fortune had changed. He’d shared his good fortune with Emilia and the treasure was all but forgotten.
Until the day Perry told her he was in love with her. He’d been so sure she would fall at his feet and marry him. The shock of her refusal had sent him into a terrible mood, and Emilia feared what repercussions there might be not only for her but Magnus, too. She was aware that Perry associated with shifters, he knew about them but wasn't one himself. Foolishly she believed he understood why she said no, he would get over her and find his own true love.
“Why did you tell Perry?” Magnus asked as if reading her mind as she walked along the trail deep in thought.
“After he proposed to me, he was upset when I refused him. I tried to explain why but he just kept pushing me to change my mind. So, I told him I was a shifter. It was a mistake because we’d never mentioned it, he said I was a liar. My pride got the better of me.” Emilia’s heart filled with sadness and regret. “I trusted him.”
“We both did,” Magnus replied.
“He seemed to accept my denial of his affections after that. Our friendship continued, I thought as normal. But all the time he was conspiring against us. Even before he asked me, he was conspiring against us. Or me. What would he have done if I said yes?”<
br />
“I don’t know.” Magnus took her hand as they walked beneath the leafy trees. It was peaceful here, and Emilia could almost close her eyes and imagine she was back in the time. “He always had a big ego, maybe he wanted a dragon shifter for a wife, and…”
“If he couldn’t have a dragon shifter for a wife, no one could.” She gave a short humorless laugh. “He never really loved me, did he? He wanted some perceived power or status that a dragon shifter could give him.”
“I don’t believe that,” Magnus told her firmly. “I do believe he loved you, the human you.”
She was tired of asking why. She was tired of the whole sorry business. “Or maybe he wanted our treasure.”
“He could have taken that when he put us to sleep.”
“He might have changed his mind if Chin Shan hadn’t told Perry dragons sleep better on a bed of treasure.”
Magnus’s expression showed how deeply this betrayal cut him. “Bastard.”
“But the joke is on him. Whatever his intentions were,” Emilia told him quietly, “we are here and happy. Never forget that.”
“Even if your mate is a bear?” Magnus asked, but the humor had returned to his voice.
“What a bear he is.” Emilia sighed in adoration.
“Excuse me while I hurl my guts upon the forest floor.” Magnus made a heaving sound and they laughed. They laughed as if they had no cares in the world. And maybe they didn’t. They had no enemies, they were part of a family, and they both had mates.
This was perhaps a life their mother would want for them. And perhaps somewhere she was riding on the back of her dragon shifter mate, through the cosmos, with an approving eye on her children.
Chapter Thirteen – Thorn
“Thorn, I was going to give you a call.” Mr. Tully met him in the foyer of the museum.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Tully?” Thorn asked. He didn’t have much time and wanted to get stuck into the archives in an attempt to unearth further information on Chin Shan, but he appreciated Mr. Tully’s enthusiasm for the museum. This was likely another attempt to persuade Thorn to bring up some artifact or other from the basement to put on display.
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