Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “So, you’re busy,” Kean said, not even trying to hide his smirk. “Good lunch break?”

  “Hilarious,” Ronan said. “Do you need me?”

  “No, go back to what—or who—you were doing,” Kean said, chuckling to himself and stepping back. “Before she gets out of the mood.”

  “She’s always in the mood,” Ronan retorted, and then he closed the door to return to his lady friend.

  Kean walked back down the hallway, this time stopping at Siobhan’s door. But when he knocked, there was no answer, and he didn’t want to keep either his mother or Dhara waiting. He returned to the main suite, just to find Dhara about to open the front door and leave.

  “Hold on,” he urged, for some reason feeling as though it was imperative she didn’t leave. “Don’t walk out.”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said, looking nervously back at him. “I think it was a mistake.”

  The way she said it made Kean realize that his suspicion that she was a jealous wife looking for someone to track down her husband wasunfounded. She looked truly scared, which meant that he wasn’t going to let her walk out of the office without hearing her story. He just had to figure out how to juggle that with spending the afternoon with his mother.

  He glanced toward Colleen, and behind her frail-looking body, he saw clear evidence of a sharp mind and quick wit. Colleen may have been far past the years of transforming into her dragonform and fighting against the evil forces of the world, both natural and supernatural, but that was a constraint imposed on her only by physicality. Kean smiled at the look on her face and nodded.

  “Dhara, why don’t you join us for lunch?”

  Chapter Four

  Dhara

  How she had gotten roped into lunch with two strangers, Dhara didn’t know. Perhaps, in hindsight, she should have reconsidered attempting to contact the agency during her own lunch break, as it seemed clear that they were all on theirs as well. Both her fear and her ingrained politeness had prevented her from turning down the man’s kind invitation for her to crash his lunch with his mother, but she hardly wanted to talk about her darkest suspicions in front of a sweet, old lady, who had just hoped to share a lobster roll with her son.

  “Mom likes to go down to the pier,” Kean had explained to her, as they stood in the parking lot, having agreed to go in their respective cars and meet at the eating place. “It’s her favorite thing, even if it’s a little touristy. You know that one stand that sells supposedly fresh lobster rolls?”

  “I’m afraid I’m a bit touristy, too,” she had told him. “I’m new in town.”

  But he had given her directions, and she had been able to follow them well enough. Now she was standing outside of her car, watching as Kean walked his mother into the small shack of a restaurant that sat facing the water. On a prettier, warmer day it would have been nice to sit at one of the tables outside and look out over the water, but there was a chilly bite in the air that was the final inspiration Dhara needed to go ahead and hurry inside after them.

  After all, it would be rude to back out now—and she would have to go back to her house alone that night.

  Dhara walked into the restaurant and followed Kean’s lead, ordering at the front counter and then sitting down at the table where he’d left Colleen, placing her order number where the staff could easily find her. Awkwardly, Dhara gave the older woman a slight smile, shifting around on the bench as she searched for something to say that wasn’t sorry I crashed your mother-son lunch.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Colleen said, before Dhara could speak. “I see you’re uncomfortable, but there’s no need. Kean takes his work seriously, and he’s glad to have you here so he can listen to what’s bothering you.”

  Smiling slightly, Dhara felt herself relax at least a little bit. “I’m grateful for that. I just hate to disturb your lunch.”

  “Nonsense,” Colleen said, waving a hand at her. “Kean and I have lunch every week. We have nothing left to talk about. It’s a mercy you’re here to entertain us.”

  Dhara laughed just as Kean walked over and sat down, his own order number in hand. “Already fast friends?” he asked, smiling at her.

  She had to admit that he was one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen. His chestnut-brown hair fell in waves to his shoulders, giving him a rugged look that his thick beard accentuated. But it was his eyes that were truly captivating. They were such a light blue that they appeared almost clear, and it seemed as though someone could look into them for hours without even noticing a minute passing by. When she had first seen him, it had taken her a while to look anywhere but at his handsome face, but when she had seen him from afar, she had to admit that his body was every bit as incredible. He radiated strength and power in a way that she had never experienced before, and it was doing things to her hormones that she had almost thought she was immune to.

  Dhara had never been one of those girls to go gaga over a handsome man, and she had always prided herself on the fact that she considered intelligence to be a man’s most attractive quality. Sitting next to Kean, though, she was forced to recognize that she had no idea whether or not he was intelligent, yet she was reacting to him like she was in heat.

  He sat down beside her, his arm brushing hers, and warmth flooded through her, settling low in her stomach where a slow burn began.

  She hadn’t answered him, but he didn’t seem to notice her awkward silence, instead turning to his mother. When Dhara focused again on their conversation, the two were bickering about something to do with what Kean had ordered, and she had to smile at the older woman’s spunk.

  “Oh, that’s nonsense,” Colleen was saying. “That’s just downright nonsense, Kean. Nobody puts mayonnaise on a lobster roll!”

  “Mom, that’s literally one of the key ingredients,” Kean said, no hint of impatience in his voice. “I tell you that every time we come here. Lobster rolls have mayonnaise on them. So, no, I didn’t order you one without mayonnaise. You like the mayonnaise.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do,” Kean promised her with a smile, just as one of the staff arrived to deliver their orders.

  Though Dhara had been in Boston for several months, she’d not yet tried the lobster roll that the city was so well-known for. She was in a bit of a rut, she supposed, when it came to eating, and she tended to visit the same salad place every day for lunch and cook at home every night. But when she bit into the roll, sweet lobster, crunchy bread, rich mayonnaise, luscious butter, tangy lemon juice, and crisp celery all exploded into her mouth in one delicious bite, and she vowed to jump straight out of the rut she’d been in.

  “Wow,” she said, around a mouthful of lobster roll. “Good.”

  Kean chuckled, glancing over at her as he took his own bite. “These are decent, yeah. There are places in the city where you get them even better than these.”

  “Wow,” Dhara said again, an Americanism she had thoroughly adopted during her adult years in the States. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “I do like the mayonnaise,” Colleen mused, inspecting her roll.

  “I know you do, Mom,” Kean said, shaking his head in amusement. Then he turned to Dhara, putting down his sandwich and looking at her more seriously. “So what brought you into Connolly Security today?”

  Dhara’s brief euphoria over her sandwich dissipated, and she returned to the perpetually uncomfortable state she had existed in for the past six weeks. There was part of her that desperately wanted to confess everything in the hopes of hearing Kean say that there was some perfectly rational, normal, scientific explanation for it all. In her heart of hearts, she knew there must be, because science dominated her worldview. It was the core of who she was. But there was another part of her that still remembered the look on Bellamina’s face two days ago when she had practically run from Dhara’s kitchen and the intensely awkward interactions the two women had had at work the next day. It had clearly been a mistake to invite her only friend in the area
to witness the fearsome insanity that had become Dhara’s reality, but she had no one in Boston, and she’d been lost as to what to do.

  Now, if she told Kean, would he look at her like she had two heads too?

  “Dhara?” Kean sounded concerned now. “It’s all right. You can talk to me. Whatever you have to say, I’m not going to judge it.”

  She glanced up at him, and it wasn’t that she didn’t believe his words. He had probably heard any number of things over his years working in security and investigation. Bellamina had immediately referred her to Connolly Security, after having seen what happened with the lights in Dhara’s home. There had to be a reason for it—perhaps Connolly Security was known for solving cases that might involve less-than-scientific issues.

  “You might not judge it,” Dhara said slowly, easing her way into her revelation. “But I do. I’m a scientist, and what I’m going to ask for help with is one of the least scientific things that I can imagine. I’ve spent weeks trying to deny that it’s happening, but I can’t, and I’m scared.”

  “Science can’t answer all questions,” Colleen said, shaking her gray head. “That’s a fact you can take to the bank.”

  Dhara smiled slightly. She was already—somehow—fond of the older woman, but she couldn’t have disagreed more. Her life was built on the principle that science was the key to understanding the world, and that she could contribute to the world by helping people to better understand science and using science to better understand people. If she admitted out loud what she thought she was seeing, then it was her entire worldview upended.

  “I moved into a new house,” Dhara said, rushing through her explanation in the same way that someone might rip off a Band-Aid—painful, but at least over quickly. “It’s a beautiful, old, wonderful house, and I love it. Or at least I did. Something or someone is in the house with me, and I can’t see them or talk to them or understand what they want. But they’re angry, and I’m afraid, and I need help.”

  Once the rush of words was out, Dhara felt as though a weight had been lifted off her. It was such a relief to actually say it out loud, something she hadn’t even really done with Bellamina. It had only been implied, hanging horribly between them ever since. Dhara knew she might never regain Bellamina’s trust as a manager and a scientist, but she might have bigger things to worry about if she couldn’t figure out who belonged to the whispered wonderings in her walls.

  “It’s a ghost,” Dhara blurted out, eager to purge her fears now that she realized how good it felt. “There’s a ghost in my house. It scares me, and I think it wants to hurt me. I know it wants to hurt me. I sound ridiculous! I know I do. I sound like a paranoid fool who turns every little noise of an old house settling into ghost stories in her mind, but it’s not like that. It’s really not. There’s laughter. The lights—I can’t control them. The water in the shower goes from hot to cold when the bathroom door opens, and when the bathroom door shuts again, the water goes back to hot. Things break, and …and …” She gulped in a breath of air, struggling to get the worst part of it out. “For the past three nights, I’ve woken up to the feeling that there are hands around my throat. A ghost is going to kill me, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Chapter Five

  Kean

  Kean was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Dhara had just poured out all her fears to him, going white as she spoke, and he believed every word that she said. Ghosts were no surprise to Kean. He lived in a world that was filled with paranormal and supernatural beings, and he was one himself. He could hardly swoop through the air at night in the form of a dragon with a twelve-foot wingspan or know the history of his ancestors and then pretend shock when informed that someone was being haunted by a ghost. He wanted to tell her that he believed her, that he could help her, and that she didn’t have to feel guilty for betraying her worldview by voicing the fact that she now believed in a ghost.

  But he couldn’t be too quick to speak. The Dragon Clan was always careful, whenever confronted with a supernatural case, not to appear too accepting. Their lives depended upon flying—no pun intended—under the radar, and that meant that they couldn’t be too closely associated with the paranormal. It might invite people to look more closely at them. Kean had to play it cool and adopt the role of the willing-to-be-convinced skeptic, maintaining her trust while also not raising her suspicions.

  It was a fine line to walk, and—

  “Oh, ghosts are very common,” Colleen said, picking up a piece of particularly luscious lobster and popping it into her mouth. “Kean can definitely help you with that, dear. Don’t you worry. He’s gotten rid of any number of ghosts over the years.”

  Kean closed his eyes, trying to hide his instinctive wince. So much for subtlety, Mother.

  “Really?” Dhara was looking between the two of them, frowning. “You believe me? I didn’t think you’d believe me at all—not until I showed you.”

  “I think what my mother means to say,” Kean said, giving Colleen a pointed look, “is that we have certainly, as an agency, dealt with cases before that seem to have unusual circumstances attached to them. Sometimes there’s a very natural explanation for those unusual circumstances.” He paused for a moment. “And sometimes there’s not. It’s our policy to never rule out any explanation.”

  He was hedging, big-time, but Dhara’s smile was full of so much relief that it didn’t seem to matter. She pressed a hand to her heart, letting out a breath. “Oh God. I can’t even tell you how afraid I’ve been even to suggest the possibility. It’s almost as terrifying to face a belief in ghosts as it is to face an actual ghost. I’m just glad that you’re not calling me crazy. Thank you.”

  She was endearing, and Kean couldn’t help but smile, even as his eyes darted down to where her hand was pressed against her full, lush breasts. He licked his lips, and his mother kicked him under the table.

  “Ow!”

  “What?” Dhara asked, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  Kean reached down and rubbed his shin. His mother might be old, growing more eccentric by the day, and be unable to shift into her dragon form any longer, but she had by no means lost all of her supernatural strength. Had he been merely human, his leg would have been caved in from the force of her kick.

  “Nothing,” Kean told Dhara, pointedly not looking at his mother. He was embarrassed that she had clearly caught him ogling Dhara, and he could only hope that Dhara hadn’t noticed it too. “Just a twinge. Anyway. You’re definitely not crazy, and I would be happy to help you figure out what’s going on at your house. I just need to talk to Ronan and make sure that we get everything squared away officially.”

  “Ronan,” Dhara said. “Another Irish name. How funny. Are you related?”

  “In a way.”

  “What way?” Dhara asked, picking her sandwich up again and taking another bite.

  “We’re very distant cousins,” Kean told her, figuring that was a simple way of saying that their families were linked through both genetics and destinies for generations back and that they were part of a clan of shapeshifters whose mission was to use the powers that had been cursed on them in the early 1600s to protect the world they lived in. That just seemed like a lot of information for a first meeting, particularly given that the first rule of the Dragon Clan was that they never told anyone about themselves.

  Dhara smiled at him. “That’s nice that you get to work together.”

  “They’re all Irish names,” Colleen said, picking up a napkin to dab the leftover butter and mayonnaise from her lips. “See, there’s Ronan and Kean …then there’s Siobhan, Moira, and Eamon.”

  Dhara’s eyes widened. “That’s a very strange coincidence, isn’t it? Unless you’re all related…?”

  “Distant cousins,” Kean said again, standing up and beginning to gather their trash. “Everyone done? Good. Mom, we’d better get you back home.”

  “But I thought—”

  “I know,” Kean said, cutting off her protest that th
ey were supposed to go to the library. After her loose lips at lunch and her kick to his shin, though, he thought their library plans should be moved to the next day. “But I’ll take you out for the afternoon tomorrow instead.”

  As Dhara cleared her own trash, Kean used the opportunity to round the table and sit beside his mother, whispering to her, “Mom, you have to be more careful. You’re telling her too much information! Remember how we’re supposed to act skeptical when people tell us about supernatural things they see? Otherwise it looks like we’re too invested in it all.”

  “Oh, that’s nonsense,” Colleen said, not bothering to whisper. “That’s a smart girl there. You can beat around the bush all you want and you won’t fool her. Trust me on this one, Kean. She’s trustworthy.”

  Kean sighed, loving his mother more than anything, and yet not knowing what to do with her as she got older and forgot the ways of their clan. “Mom, I love you,” he said, kissing her hair. “I’m going to take you home, and I promise I’ll take you out tomorrow.”

  “Fine, fine,” Colleen agreed, reaching a hand up to straighten her hair in case he had mussed it. “No kissing in public.”

  “Oh my God,” Kean said, laughing as he stood up with her. “You’re impossible.”

  They met Dhara outside, where she was waiting for them, and she walked them to Kean’s car, clearly not wanting the meeting to be done with before they had a chance to talk further. But Kean waited until he’d gotten his mother settled in her seat and closed her door before he turned to Dhara.

  “I’m going to take her home,” he told the beautiful woman looking up at him with wide, trusting eyes. “I want you to go back to the agency and ask to talk to Ronan. Tell him that I’m taking your case and that you need to be on the books officially. Okay?”

  She nodded, fishing in her purse for a pad of paper on which to write his instructions. “Okay, and then what? Do I pay him? I’ll pay whatever it costs to get this taken care of—anything.”