Dragon Temptation

by Amelia Jade

  “Ow!” he said, rubbing it. She hadn’t held back.

  “No, I think you’re awake.” She frowned. “Am I dreaming?”

  He reached forward but she slapped his hand away before he could return the favor. “Nice try.”

  “So if I’m not dreaming. And you’re not dreaming. Then are we both really here?”

  He rose from his seat, still trying to come to terms with what he was seeing in front of him.

  “I know I am,” she said. “But you? You’re really here? What are you doing here?”

  This was it. The critical moment where he was to tell her everything. To confess his feelings for her, and to find out if she felt the same. Anxiety swelled his throat shut. All Lex could do was stare, dumbfounded. This was not how he’d planned out anything in his head! All of his scenarios had involved him finding her at her office, or at home. He was woefully unprepared for this.

  “Lex?”

  “I was coming to find you.” The words weren’t ones he’d rehearsed. They just tumbled out of his mouth without prompting, the first things that had come into his head. They were also the pure, unaltered truth, with a minimum of exaggeration to them.

  “To find me?”

  He nodded. “What are you doing here?”

  The answer he figured was likely heading back to Surrey now that she had recovered from her ordeal, to ensure that everything was on track. There were rumors that the company had big plans to start building in some backup trunk-lines from the dam to Everett and then to Surrey and vice versa, so that an outage like this could be prevented in the future. Lex wasn’t sure it made monetary sense, but that’s why he was just a line worker, not a suit-wearer.

  “I was coming back to see you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

  “Umm, I meant that like, holy shit. Like, you’ve got to be kidding me.” He smiled awkwardly, afraid that he’d just ruined the whole thing by shooting his mouth off.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I have to admit, this isn’t how I saw this whole thing going down in my head.”

  “That makes two of us,” she agreed with a laugh. “But I guess you could say that everything about us hasn’t exactly gone to plan.”

  “Right. Still...” he looked around. “Okay, move back twenty feet.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Just do it.” He waved his hands at her.

  Disbelief written all over her face, Petal walked back roughly twenty feet.

  “Okay, now I’m going to sit down and turn around. Then say my name again.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is real life, Lex. Not a movie. We can’t just pause and rewind.”

  “Just do it,” he said, turning around.

  “I really hope you have something good that you want to do here, Lex,” she said, calling out his name even louder.

  He turned and rose all at once from the chair.

  “You know what,” he said, walking across to her, dropping the handle to his carry-on and sliding his backpack off as he went. “I do.”

  Petal yelped as he swept her off the ground, holding her tight to his body while he kissed her, covering her lips completely, uncaring of who might see him.

  “That was so cheesy,” she said softly after returning the kiss for several seconds.

  “But you loved it.”

  “I really did. Did you seriously just drop your backpack in the middle of the airport while walking to kiss me?”

  “Mm-hmm,” he said while kissing her some more. They were beginning to draw a crowd. He still didn’t care. If anything, he kissed her harder.

  Whispers from nearby reached his ears. “Did they just get engaged?” “I think he just proposed?” “I don’t know, but isn’t it sweet. I want to be swept off my feet like that.”

  He grinned.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Absolutely nothing.” He covered her protests with more kisses, until she finally pushed him away with a smile, slipping through his arms until she was back on the ground.

  “This is fate,” he said. “You realize that, right? We both came looking for each other, and happened to cross paths at the airport?”

  “It really does feel like it, doesn’t it?” She came up next to him, her hand sliding into his, holding it tight.

  “It does. It also feels really, really good.” He held up her hand and kissed the back of it gently.

  “Okay there, Mr. Suave. Let’s get your luggage and go sit down somewhere.”

  “Whatever you say. Are you hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  They agreed to go get her food—he was a shifter, he could always eat more—and then figure out which direction they were going to continue their travels. Lex didn’t care; he just wanted to make Petal as happy as he was to have found her coming to see him. His entire world had been rocked by that revelation. Never had he considered that her time with him might change her and affect her as much as it had him.

  But before they could do all that, his cell phone started to go off like crazy, with text after text notification. He pulled it out and started reading the messages, his stomach sinking like a stone the more he read.

  “What’s wrong, Lex? What is it?”

  He looked up. “Fate.”

  Surrey had been hit by another storm. This one was even worse.

  19. A Helping Hand

  Petal

  Their unexpected reunion on hold, Petal rushed them back to Surrey by using her company credit card to buy out a second first-class seat on the plane. The passenger hadn’t objected one bit, not being in a rush himself, and was more than happy to accept the two-thousand-dollar bribe to wait six hours for the next flight. Lex told her she could have gotten him to do it for less, but she didn’t care.

  Something about his tone and the way he told her he needed to get back to Surrey told her it was more important than just the fact that his crew needed him. Something else was at work here, but he wasn’t willing to share. His dedication to the town was admirable, and since she’d been planning on going there anyway, she wasn’t bothered by the renewed urgency.

  “When we get back I’m going to have to leave you,” he said now, leaning across to her seat so he could speak quietly.

  “What? But we just found each other.”

  They’d used the waiting time to discuss her attitude change when last they’d seen each other. Petal had told him how it had just been something she was used to doing, a personality she’d donned as a mask, that at some point had simply become who she was. When he’d asked why she hadn’t come to apologize, but had instead fled town, her only answer had been shame and embarrassment.

  He forgave her on the spot, pointing out the fact that she’d realized her error, wanted to work on it, and had come looking for him to apologize in person. How was he supposed to stay mad at someone who would fly six hours away just to come see him, at risk of getting in trouble with her work?

  She knew it wouldn’t be that simple. It was going to take a lot of work for her to figure out who she really was, to discard her corporate persona and find the “real Petal” again. The fun-loving girl she’d been in college. The one who loved to laugh and smile. She would be different now. At thirty-seven years old, there was no way she could be the same. But what she could be was an older version of that. Not a robot. In time, she was confident she could be comfortable in her own skin again.

  Especially with Lex’s help.

  “I know,” he said apologetically. “It’s not the best choice, believe me. I don’t want to. But I have to, Petal.”

  “Why?”

  He grimaced. “I can’t tell you. Not yet at least. I promise you that at some point I will tell you everything, and you’ll understand that. But I can’t do that yet.”

  Her frown deepened, eyebrows nearly touching as they wrinkled her forehead together.

  The plane lurched as it touched down, taxiing
to a smooth stop a few moments later.

  “Lex.” She was whining now and she knew it. But Petal didn’t want to let the mysterious power line worker go now that she’d finally been able to open up to him and to herself about everything. This was when they were supposed to spend days on end together, simply discovering one another and how amazing they found each other. She wanted that. Not to have to deal with another storm recovery while he disappeared.

  “I’m not happy about it either,” he told her, the plane coming to a stop at the terminal. “Trust me, I’m really not. But it has to be done.”

  “You promise you’ll tell me?”

  “Absolutely. I want no secrets from you. None at all.” There was an unspoken “but” at the end.

  “But you can’t reveal it all just yet.”

  He sighed unhappily, meeting her eyes and nodding. “Exactly.”

  Petal decided to speak what was on her mind. “There’s not another woman is there? Because if there is, I need to know that now. Because we’re done. I’m not—”

  His finger came up and across her lips.

  “Petal Olson,” he said fiercely. “There is not another woman. And with you, there will never be another woman. Do you understand me? That’s it.”

  The finality of his voice spoke of something more than a promise to never cheat. It spoke with something that to her ears sounded a lot like eternity.

  “Who are you, Lex Cronus?” she whispered.

  He smiled. “I’m all yours.”

  The plane doors opened.

  ***

  “VINCE! Get your useless ass down here!”

  The office was in full panic mode. The town had been hit again, destroying buildings and leveling trees for miles around. Some claimed that it had been a tornado that touched down, but if it had, Petal felt that it hadn’t lasted very long for how powerful it must have been. Plus, she’d never heard of there being tornadoes among the hills on the coastline like this. Occasionally a powerful storm would run itself aground from the Pacific, but by the time it reached this far inland it had usually lost much of its power.

  It doesn’t matter what it was. That’s not your job. Your job is to deal with the result.

  The annoying onsite manager came bustling over to her, looking beyond frazzled.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she snapped, letting herself fall back into her work persona, but this time recognizing that she was doing it on purpose.

  “Uh, well, we had another storm come through and—”

  She cut him off. “I’m well aware of that. But that storm dissipated nearly five hours ago as near as I can tell. Why is everyone still running around with their heads cut off? Have you not organized your teams and told them what their priorities are?”

  “Ah, um, well, you see Miss Olson, it’s more complicated than that and there are procedures that have to be followed.”

  “Vince, this is a state of emergency. Surrey has been hammered for the third time in a week. People are going missing out there, and possibly dying, Vince. The search and rescue teams need power so that they can communicate better. With power, cell phones will have service, which means people can call for ambulances and police. That is your responsibility, Vince.”

  He just stood there shaking.

  “Go into your office, and if I see your miserable hide again before the day is done I’ll fire your ass. You are hereby delegated to secretary. Answer the phones and deal with the public. Got it?”

  “Yes, Miss Olson,” he said, turning and scurrying for the perceived safety of his office.

  She turned to survey the staffers all manning computers situated around the huge map of Surrey.

  “Okay, people. You know your town better than I do. I need to know where the most critical areas are, and I need to know now. Who can provide me that information?”

  A tall lanky man approached her with a list. She noted his limbs weren’t shaking. Good.

  “I have it all right here, ma’am.”

  “Okay, start dispatching the crews then. You have three, right?”

  “Yes. I’ll get right on that.”

  “Good. Then I want you and the others to start working on a list of other areas. I want it classified in five levels. Level one is the most urgent and critical—think hospitals, clinics, water stations, old folks’ homes. That sort of thing. Downward through level five, which is unused or redundant lines. Let’s go, people!”

  All around her the room burst into action. Petal was stunned. She turned to the nearest worker. “Was all everyone needed just the command to get stuff done?”

  The freckle-faced kid blushed red. “Vince is very particular about no one doing anything without his say-so, ma’am.”

  “I see,” she said, waving him back to work. And she did. Glancing over her shoulder, she glared at Vince through the glass windows of his office. The little man saw her looking, swallowed so hard it was visible to her, and snatched up the phone.

  Petal wasn’t even sure it had been ringing.

  All around her Vince’s immediate subordinates were barking out orders to their teams, and the chaos was soon broken down into effective action. Petal couldn’t make sense of it all, but then it wasn’t her job to do so. Apparently everyone else in the office had been forced to be good at their jobs to make up for Vince. In minutes none of them were coming to her, simply finding problems and handling them on the spot. She was effectively worthless.

  “Ma’am?”

  She turned to see the same lanky male approaching.

  “Yes?”

  “I just thought you should know. Everything is being handled, but I had a question on how you wanted to proceed on one particular area.”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  He guided her over to the map. “It’s this.”

  Petal looked at the map. He was pointing out an area to the north of town. “What about it?”

  “Well, we’re not getting any reports from the system. It’s not even registering the power being out to those lines.”

  She frowned. “What does that mean?”

  The man shrugged. He looked at a total loss. “I don’t know. I’ve never experienced it before. The system should be up there. It actually has an unbroken chain. So I can’t fathom why the system is doing what it is.”

  Petal eyed the route. “Can we send someone over there?”

  “All we have are our repair teams. It would have to be someone from here.”

  Now she understood why he was approaching her. “And you are all needed here to coordinate things. But I’m not.”

  He shrugged. “I know what happened the last time you went out, ma’am. Nobody will fault you for not wanting to. I certainly would keep my rear end parked right here if I were you. But I thought you should know.”

  Petal sighed. She felt the same as him. There was no way she wanted to go back out in that. Not after what had happened the last time. And yet, she was the supervisor. The boss. It was her job to make sure that everything went according to plan.

  “What’s the damage like out that way?”

  “Minimal. It hit the town itself and curled southward. The north was mostly spared.” He hurried to continue. “And this is a main road. It goes right through Surrey from north to south, on flat land. Nothing like what happened the last time could happen there. It’s mostly farmland once you get past the north end of town, so very few trees either.” He shrugged. “It’s not critical, but I could see the look on your face that said you wanted to help. We’ve got it all locked down here, so…”

  She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll look into it.”

  Petal was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. She didn’t want to look into it at all. Not even in the slightest. But being the ranking member on site sometimes meant she had to do things she didn’t want to. In this case, that meant going out and exploring some funky lines.

  I’m just going out to take a look I suppose, right? No harm in that. Just drive out there, look around to see
what’s going on, and then report back. I can do this.

  “All right, get me a truck. I’m certainly not taking the rental out. Not after what happened last time,” she joked.

  He nodded and gestured at another employee who disappeared and returned a moment later with a set of keys.

  “Thanks. I’ll call in when I have some more information.” She looked at the map once more, memorizing her route, and then she left the building, trying to calm herself.

  This is not going to be like last time at all. This is a major road, with plenty of cell service and on flat ground. You’re fine.

  She made a pact with herself that if she even saw a hint of nasty weather, she would turn around and head back for the shop immediately. There would be no pushing anything this time.

  20. Coming to Conclusions

  Lex

  He finally returned to the shop, wet, bedraggled, and bone-weary tired.

  That was what happened when he spent hours running through the hills to the east of town at top speed, trying to track down what he’d finally come to accept was out there.

  But his search had come up empty, leaving Lex to consider whether he was just being paranoid. All the signs pointed to his suspicions being correct. The freakishly powerful storms. The way they were tethered to Surrey somehow, localizing on the town and ignoring the surrounding areas. The fact that there had been three of increasing power within a week, with absolutely no buildup before they descended on the hapless town. Missing people.

  There was just no way it was a coincidence. It was impossible; too many factors lined up to support his conclusion. But no matter how hard he’d hunted in the hills, he hadn’t discovered one solitary piece of evidence that backed him up. Now he was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sit down with Petal and recharge.

  Pushing open the door, he half-stumbled into the vehicle maintenance area. He needed food, and badly.

  “Lex?”

  He looked up to see David approaching. “Hey, Dave,” he said, waving at Vince’s number two. He was a good person, and in Lex’s estimation, should have been running the joint a long time ago. But corporate politics were what they were, and David just refused to play them, so he stayed where he was.