Ronan still didn’t have a good feeling about the man, but he had just displayed both knowledge and power, given that Ronan had never mentioned his grandmother, much less told the man what she had looked like. He also knew that people he trusted had said that Josiah could do what he claimed.
What point was there in further delay? He needed to speak to his ancestors and get their advice on how he could provide Dragon Clan members with the ability to breed outside of their own. The ancestors were the ones who had taken the original dragon curse and changed it into something incredible, not only for themselves, but for everyone who the Dragon Clan had helped over the years. He needed them now, and Josiah was his best link to them.
Ronan slung the bag off his shoulder and held it out toward Josiah. “Here. Take it. I want to see the leader of the original clan generation. Patrick O’Donnell. I need to speak with him.”
Bending down, Josiah picked up the bag, ignoring what Ronan had said. He greedily opened it and began sifting through the fresh bills that Ronan had counted himself. The man’s wrinkled face shone with anticipation, and he licked his lips eagerly as his fingers touched bill after bill.
“It’s all there,” Ronan said. “Count it on your own time. I have to be in Boston by morning, and I want to bring back good news. I need to speak to Patrick O’Donnell now.”
Josiah’s eyes lifted, connecting with Ronan’s, and in that split second, Ronan knew that he had made a terrible mistake in handing over the money that was meant to back Connolly Security. He lunged toward the man, but Josiah suddenly straightened and nimbly jumped out of the way.
Ronan’s outstretched hand grabbed at nothing, and then Josiah was laughing gleefully behind him, giving Ronan just enough time to turn around before he lifted into the air.
“So big, strong, and stupid,” Josiah taunted, his nasty little face all pinched up in self-congratulation. “It’s not that I can’t help you, Ronan …it’s that I won’t! But thanks for the money! I was running low.”
Fury ripped through Ronan, and for a moment, it kept him pinned to the spot as he watched Josiah nimbly flip in the air and begin to go higher and higher, taking with him everything that Ronan had to offer. The little old man clearly thought that he’d won, and that because he, too, could fly, Ronan wouldn’t have the advantage on him.
That was Josiah’s mistake.
Ronan stripped off his clothes and left them behind, then shifted into his jet-black dragon form, his wings stroking through the air with such power that he was immediately propelled into the sky. Josiah was ahead of him, propelled by whatever power Ronan hadn’t detected in him, but Ronan was gaining. He was the fastest of his generation, and the strongest by far, but even if he hadn’t been, his anger would have given him the extra boost that he needed.
Ronan felt pure satisfaction when Josiah looked back and saw how close Ronan was to him, and he opened his mouth, breathing out a cloud of fire that raced toward Josiah, encircling him and flickering against his skin. Josiah faltered in the air, beginning to lose altitude as he tried to protect himself against the fire, and his grip on the bag with Ronan’s money loosened. Again, Ronan breathed fire, but this time without the heat that he could infuse or hold back as he wished. Harmlessly, the fire raced toward the money bag, lifting it out of Josiah’s grasp and bringing it back toward Ronan.
Flipping in the air, Ronan secured the bag with one strong talon, then fixed his yellow, slit-like eyes on Josiah, ready to make the man regret the day that he had decided to try to double-cross him. He wouldn’t ever make that mistake again, and he sure as hell would never be paid again for his services, no matter how well he provided them.
“Wait,” Josiah protested, holding his hands up as he vibrated in the air while Ronan slowly circled him. “Wait, I can explain. It was a test! Just a test!”
Ronan didn’t buy it. He flicked out a wing, snapping it at Josiah’s side and making the man yelp and wriggle in the air. He lost altitude again, and Ronan gracefully followed, continuing to circle the man menacingly.
“We can still make this work,” Josiah was saying, pleading now, his hands laced together. “I’ll help you. I just…I needed to see what you can do. And look at you! Look how powerful you are.”
Ronan snorted fire at the man, continuing to circle, an unimpressed and unmoved air about him. He wanted Josiah to feel his fear completely before he granted him mercy. Let the man learn his lesson—and learn it well.
“Look,” Josiah said. “I’m going back down. I’m going back to the ground. We can talk. This is going to work out.”
Ronan lowered himself as well, but as he began to sweep downward, Josiah suddenly shot up toward the stars again, putting a mile of distance between himself and Ronan in mere seconds. It took less than that for Ronan to realize that, once again, the man was trying to outsmart him. Ronan was a merciful man, and he always gave people second chances.
He didn’t give them third chances.
Righting himself in the air, he shot after Josiah, using his broad, dark wings to send him soaring through the sky at speeds that defied even his own expectations. He caught up with Josiah Webb in less than ninety seconds, despite the man’s frantic flight, and he snatched him out of the air with his mouth, shaking him lightly within the confines of his sharp teeth and strong jaw.
The man’s screams were so panicked that, had they not been miles and miles above the earth, surely people would have come running out of their homes to see what tragedy was occurring. But high in the air, above even the paths that airplanes would take to cut across the country, Ronan had no concerns about teaching Josiah Webb the lesson that he deserved.
He shook him until his brain rattled around in the man’s head, and then he spat him out, batting him away with one wing. Immediately, Josiah began to plummet toward the ground, and Ronan waited just a beat before following after him with the intent to swoop under him just moments before the man hit the ground in the Garden of the Gods.
But when Ronan did swoop downward, his wings pressed to his body to allow him to nosedive at a speed far greater than Josiah, he felt a flash of power explode around him that he couldn’t explain. Seconds later, he moved beneath Josiah’s body, catching him on his back, and rolling him to the ground at the base of the towering red rocks where they had initially agreed to meet.
Ronan shifted back into his human form, picked up the bag of money that had fallen from his talon, and walked over to Josiah’s prone body. He didn’t have to be a doctor to understand what was in front of him.
Josiah Webb was dead, and the remnants of the surge of power Ronan had felt in the moments just before Josiah had died, still danced along his skin.
Chapter One
Ronan
Ronan looked at himself in the mirror, dragging a hand over his haggard-looking jawline, covered in dark stubble that betrayed the fact that he had not shaved in several days. It wasn’t a priority, these days, to look good, considering that nothing he did changed the circles under his eyes or the pallor of his skin.
It was after nine in the morning, and his old self would have already been up for hours, having gone for a long run at six that morning, followed by a gym workout, a huge breakfast, and a long, scalding-hot shower before he started his workday. Today, Ronan was glad just to be upright and standing on his own in front of his mirror after the grueling night he’d just endured.
His body seemed to be breaking down. While his physique looked the same—muscled and strong and broad—he could feel the change that had taken place every time he worked out or went for a run. In recent weeks, walking had become tiresome, too, and the process of shifting from human to dragon form was so painful that he avoided it at all costs.
Except that it was getting to the point where he couldn’t always avoid it. The first time it had happened had been five weeks ago, and he had woken up in his bed at night, mid-transition. His dragon form had broken the bed he’d had for seven years and destroyed the room that he was sleeping in. Pict
ure frames had shattered; his window had followed suit; and the mirror that was over his dresser had lost the fight with his tail when he had half-flown half-fallen out of bed.
It was hardly the dignified transition he was used to, and it had panicked him. He hadn’t transitioned without meaning to since he was seven or eight years old, and never in his sleep before. Another few weeks had gone by without incident, though transitioning itself was still painful, and then it had started to happen again.
Only this time, he was in a grocery store, and he’d felt it coming on as he was shopping in the produce section. Transitioning into a jet-black dragon near the bananas wasn’t an option, and Ronan had used every bit of inner strength he had to clamp down on the transition long enough for him to abandon his basket, run out to the parking garage, and take the elevator all the way to the roof level of the building.
It had been sheer luck that there had been no one there at the time, and he had managed to shed his pants moments before he transitioned and ripped through his shirt and boxers. He was only in his dragon form for an instant before he transitioned back into his human state and pulled his jeans back on, but it was a long enough moment to terrify him, and he had spent days scouring the news for any mention of a strange sighting that someone had reported to the city officials.
No such report ever surfaced, but Ronan had hardly left his house in the following weeks, not willing to risk a forced transition when he was somewhere he couldn’t escape. The brief trips to his office, when he absolutely had to go, and the visits to Siobhan in the hospital after her recent ordeal with Julian had been exceptions to the norm.
He was living, essentially, as a prisoner in his own house because he couldn’t be sure of his ability to control his powers that had always been second nature to him, and he wasn’t going to be able to keep it from his friends for much longer. They had all noticed his absence and the way he was looking, and they were intent on helping him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want their help. He just didn’t know where to start explaining to them what he had been doing over the past year as he tried to figure out a way for the Dragon Clan to transform once again and begin mating with humans. He certainly didn’t know how to tell them that he suspected that Josiah Webb was the behind what was happening to him, particularly since Josiah Webb was dead.
Ronan got in the shower, letting the hot water do what it could to invigorate his exhausted body, and as he stood there, he considered what he might do with his day. It was getting increasingly difficult to make any progress on his research with the confines he was living within, but he had to keep trying to figure something out.
His newest priority was to figure out a way to get control over his transitions again. Or to at least figure out once and for all how they were happening.
Getting out of the shower, Ronan once again stood in front of the mirror, now fogged up with steam, and wrapped his towel loosely around his waist, running a hand over his abs as he slowly watched his face reappear. He considered trying to get himself out of his funk by inviting someone over for the evening. A woman. Maybe Elena, or Jessica. Or Madeline, who he hadn’t seen in almost a year. Surely one evening would be safe for interaction, and maybe getting back into his usual groove would help shake something loose in his head that would help him get control over his body again.
He hadn’t spent the night with a woman in three weeks, which by most people’s standards wasn’t long. But for Ronan, it was quite the stretch of celibacy. He enjoyed women, and they enjoyed him, and he had never seen any reason to deny anyone that kind of pleasure. They were never serious relationships, because they couldn’t be, but everyone on board understood the situation—good, clean fun. Except not always so clean.
The idea of escaping reality for a while was more than tempting, but Ronan couldn’t quite make himself place the call to any of the women he knew would be more than willing. The last few nights he had spent with someone, he always seemed to wake up the next day feeling worse. Maybe his body couldn’t handle expending so much…energy.
Getting dressed, Ronan ran the towel over his thick, dark hair and then draped it over the towel rack before heading out to his living room. The dining room table was broken, after a surprise transition three nights ago, and he hadn’t had it fixed yet, so he’d moved his laptop and other work items to the couch, where he’d set up a makeshift workstation.
He was just about to get settled in to try to be productive when there was a knock at his door, followed by an insistent voice.
“Ronan! Open up. I know you’re in there, and I need to talk to you.”
Siobhan. Ronan groaned slightly, rubbing his forehead to ease some of the tension. He loved Siobhan like a sister, and he knew that she was there with every good intention in the world. When Siobhan saw a problem, she decided to fix it, and Lord help the person who stood in her way.
Walking over to the door, Ronan opened it, not at all surprised when Siobhan pushed right past him and into the room without waiting for an invitation.
“Good, you’re here.”
“Well, I should hope so,” Ronan said, closing the door and turning toward Siobhan, smiling slightly. “Otherwise you would have stood out there doing that for who knows how long and my neighbors would have called the police.”
Siobhan sat down on the couch, crossing her legs underneath her. “Yep, probably. I know I keep telling you this, but you look like shit, Ronan.”
“You do keep telling me that.”
Ronan took a seat on the brown leather armchair that sat to the side of the couch, crossing his legs and resigning himself to the conversation they were about to have. It was the same one they’d had many times before, and he wouldn’t let it go any differently this time. What was happening in his life was his burden to bear—not the others’. He was the leader. He was the one who had started the process of trying to change the clan for the better. He was the one who had been passed down this responsibility, and he wasn’t going to let it affect their lives. Now he had put them all in a situation where they had found people with whom they had fallen in love and with whom they wanted to spend their lives. Telling them that he wasn’t making any progress toward that end just wasn’t an option.
“I’m not sitting by the sidelines anymore,” Siobhan told him, draping one arm across the back of the couch. “It was one thing when I started to notice that something was really wrong with you, but Julian was going through everything that he had to go through. That took over my life, and we’re just now getting to a point where things have calmed down a little bit. It’s given me all the time in the world to focus on what the hell is happening to you that’s leaving you looking like this and keeping you from coming into the office or going anywhere with us. You don’t even fly with us anymore, Ronan. Something is wrong.”
He felt terrible, because he knew that she was genuinely worried. But he was trying to protect her. “Siobhan…I know. I understand what you’re saying, and I’m sorry. I want to be out with you guys, but right now, it’s just not a possibility. I’m completely embroiled in the mission. That’s all.”
“The mission that is taking place from your house?” Siobhan asked, arching an eyebrow. “You’re not even claiming to go on trips anymore. You’re just here. In this house. By yourself. Looking like shit.”
Ronan leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands. “Siobhan.”
“Ronan,” she shot back, interrupting him before he could continue. “Don’t feed me bullshit. You know I don’t like the taste.”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, sounding as tired as he felt. “It’s not your burden to bear. There’s nothing you can do to help. Okay? Let me handle this my way and someday…”
“To hell with someday,” Siobhan said, standing up and walking over to the kitchen table, inspecting the broken pieces. “This isn’t normal.”
He said nothing, just watching her.
She examined every inch of the table, as though looking for
clues as to how the destruction might have happened. Then she turned toward him, her hands on her hips. “Julian had a vision. He doesn’t have those often anymore, but he had a vision of a woman. Talking to you. Her name was Natasha Ransom.”
Ronan let out a chuckle inadvertently. “That’s quite a name.”
Siobhan didn’t respond to his joke, instead walking back over to him, crouching down, and looking at him with that intensity she always had. “Do you believe that Julian has a real gift and that his visions are predictions of the future?”
“Sure,” he said, nodding. “I believe his gift, and although his visions can change due to people’s reactions to them, I do think they’re predictive. Who was this woman? Someone I picked up at a bar?” He knew it wasn’t that sort of woman, but he was determined to try to keep things light and to try to deflect Siobhan’s intensity as much as possible.
“No. She was a healer. And she was telling you that you’re in trouble.” Siobhan stood up again, crossing her arms and looking down at him. “And I’m not leaving here until you come with me to see her. Because I already tracked her down, Ronan, and you have an appointment. And it’s in one hour. Don’t push me on this, because I’m pretty sure that, right now, I could take you.”
Ronan was instantly of two minds. Part of him was furious with Siobhan for interfering and as determined as ever to keep her out of things. The other part of him really did believe in Julian’s gift and was immediately fascinated by the possibility that he was supposed to meet with a healer who might be able to give him insight into what was wrong with him.
“Ronan,” Siobhan said, dropping her arms and reaching down to take his hand in hers. “Please? We’re all so worried about you. We need you. And you need help. Please come with me to see her. Please.”
Celtic Dragons Page 98
