by Riley Storm
“A dragon shifter,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Right.” Getting to her feet, Olivia skirted around the wingtip and, mustering up every ounce of courage she’d ever possessed, marched right up to the front of the golden dragon that could speak in Aaric’s voice, and pressed her hand against one of the red-laced scales.
The gold surface was cool to the touch, much the opposite of what she’d expected, but it was real, physical. It existed as a tangible item. Swiftly, she jumped to the right and touched another, just in case it was some sort of well-done illusion.
Then she spun and went over to one of the feet, touching it, tapping one of the long sharp-looking claws that extended from the foot.
“This all feels real enough,” she muttered, the twenty-dollar bill still in her hand, crumpled and nearly forgotten. “Okay. I think that’s enough. Can you, um, switch back? Is there a time limit or something? How does this work?”
Before she was even done speaking, the dragon was shrinking, resuming more human proportions while she watched, until Aaric was standing there in front of her, as human as could be.
“You’re naked,” she observed.
“You’re looking,” he shot right back.
Olivia shrugged. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Inside. Now. I need a drink, and you have some more questions to answer mister. A lot more questions. And some clothes to put on,” she added, staring at his semi-rigid cock. “Yeah. Definitely some clothes.”
In answer, Aaric gave his hips a little wiggle.
27
Strangely enough, Aaric felt relieved.
Now that Olivia knew his secret, he could tell her everything. There was no need to hold back, to think of ways he had to phrase his answers. He could just speak without needing to worry about giving away his secret. It was strangely refreshing, and he kind of liked it.
On top of that, besides a few hysterics and one dizzy spell on their way to the kitchen, Olivia was taking it all quite well. Better than he would have ever expected.
“Okay,” she said as they sat down, tearing at a fresh loaf of bread, stuffing a piece into her mouth. “Alright,” she repeated around the food. “Um.”
“I am a dragon shifter. A fire dragon, to be specific,” he said. “There are different types of dragons. Earth, Wind, Water, Air.”
“By our powers combined,” Olivia muttered quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said with a wave of her hand, swallowing the bread. “Just something from my childhood. Go on, please.”
Frowning at her, he started to speak again, then paused. “Um, frankly, this is my first time doing this. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“How old are you?”
“Two hundred and four.”
Bread fell from her hand and she choked on a piece of half-eaten loaf for a second before recovering. Aaric watched her cautiously, making a decision not to answer while she had food in her mouth from now on.
“What the actual shit,” she hissed. “You were born during what, the war of 1812?”
“Um, more like 1715,” he answered.
“Did they teach you bad math back then?” Olivia asked. “Because that would make you three-hundred and four by our new math reckoning.”
“In a way, I guess. But I have slept the past century away in the deep sleep. I did not age, so we don’t count it toward how old we are,” Aaric explained.
“You slept for a century? Wouldn’t that be better called a coma?” Olivia asked, staring at him in shock.
“No. It’s not true sleep. It’s more like stasis. We actually turn to rock. Just like when we die, but we can be revived.”
Olivia’s mouth worked. “Okay. So, you lived for two hundred years. Then slept for another century. Why go to sleep? How old will you live to be? Where are the other dragons? How do they wake you back up when you’re stone?”
Aaric chuckled. “Most dragons can expect to live to somewhere around five centuries of active life. Give or take fifty years. The other dragons are here, below us, in massive caverns under our feet. Asleep.”
He watched as Olivia instinctively looked down, trying to comprehend that hundreds of other dragons were only a few dozen levels below them, all stone statues to the casual eye.
“So, you’re the only dragon awake?” she asked. “They’re all down there? Um, sleeping in stone?”
Aaric looked away, a familiar prick stabbing at his heart. “I am now,” he said softly.
“Now?” Olivia started to say, then fell silent. “Oh. Oh, Aaric, I’m so sorry.” Her hands reached across the table to grab his arm, resting there. “I understand now.”
Head bowed, food forgotten about, he nodded heavily. “They were the ones who woke me. Elanna and her mate Parre. They took me in when I was young,” he said bitterly, wishing once more that they were still with him. “After my parents died in the war, they were the closest thing I had.”
“Aaric, I’m so sorry,” Olivia repeated, squeezing his arm. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“I know,” he said, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m talking about them now, that’s what I need to do. Keep their memory alive, but I can’t wallow in my grief. There’s no time for that.”
Pale blue eyes partially disappeared under a frown. “You can take time to grieve. You must, Aaric, it’s good for you.”
“I will grieve,” he assured her. “But I cannot lose myself in grief right now. I was awakened for a purpose. It wasn’t by chance.” He straightened. “Evil is coming. That is why they awakened me. And I must awaken the others.”
“Evil? Awaken the others? Slow down. Why don’t we just go awaken them then? Let’s go. You said they’re below us, how do we get there?”
Aaric shook his head. “It’s not that easy,” he explained. “To awaken a dragon from deep sleep requires a conjoined effort. It can only be done by a mated pair.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Olivia pointed out. “Mate. Like you’re animals.”
“We sort of are,” he said. “And like some creatures, dragons will only have one mate in their life. Ever. The pairing, once it is fully realized, is the only thing capable of releasing a dragon from deep sleep.”
“Which is why you said you needed to find your mate,” Olivia said quietly. “Because you need to awaken the others to fight, evil? What evil?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Neither Elanna nor Parre were sure, but whatever it is, I can feel it too. Something is coming, and frankly, I don’t know what.”
“That worries you, doesn’t it?” she asked, nervously looking around as if something could jump out at any second.
“Yes, it does,” he admitted. “And if a full blood dragon is worried, everyone around him or her should be as well. There aren’t many things that can take one of us down. But rest assured that the things that can, aren’t very nice.”
Olivia bit her lip. “What can take down a dragon?”
“Plenty of things, if there are enough,” he said. “Wolf shifters, bear shifters, the big cats. Bring enough of them to a fight and I’ll be in trouble. Less so if we’re in animal form but still. We all have our weaknesses.”
“There are other shifters?” Olivia asked, stunned once more.
“Shifters, mages, Faeries. The world is much larger than you think,” he said with a wink. “But of things that can take me on, one on one? A high-level human mage could do it. A few other rare creatures, Faery Queens, Elf Lords. Vampires if they were still alive.”
“Hold the shit up here,” Olivia said, raising both hands. “Are you telling me all these things are…real?”
“Legends come from somewhere,” he said by way of explanation. “Either way, dragons only awaken when great evil arises and we are needed. Last time, it was the human mages trying to eliminate all shifters. Before that, it was the vampires’ own Roman Empire threatening to conquer the entire world, human and paranormal. We w
on both fights. But, now I’m awake again. So, something else is coming.”
“How do we find out what?”
“Hopefully what we do first is awaken some of my kin,” he said. “So that I’m not the only one here to face them.”
“Yup. Sounds like a good plan,” Olivia agreed, ripping off another piece of bread. “I guess now we just need to find you your mate. During that, you can tell me all about how vampires were controlling the Romans.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, we do need to find her.” He felt an odd pang in his stomach saying that but forged on with the rest of his comment. “And the vampires didn’t control the Romans. They were the Romans. That was a nasty fight,” he added.
Olivia’s eyebrows rose. “Wait. You were there? I thought—”
“No, no,” he said, still laughing lightly. “I wasn’t there. But with long lives, it was only a few generations before me that fought them. That was when shifters first appeared, you see. Of all races. We…” He fell silent, deciding now might not be the best time to say everything he knew about the origins of shifters.
“Yes? What?”
“We fought the vampires. Fought their armies, threw them back. Killed every last one of them,” he said.
“Their armies?”
“Of Thralls,” he said quietly. “Humans ensnared by the mind powers of vampires. To do their bidding. Acting as extensions of—”
Aaric stood up so fast, his chair flew backward and shattered against the bar twenty feet distant, his mouth hanging open in shock. “Oh fuck.”
Olivia got up slowly. “Hey. Aaric?” she asked, stepping to the side of the table, but not approaching. “Are you okay?”
He snapped his vision to her, watching every tick of her face carefully. “Who hired you,” he said quietly.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The man who sent those people to your office. What was his name?”
“Um. Edgar Martinez? He’s from South America. Why?”
Aaric frowned. South America. Not a territory the dragons normally had much to do with, even when they were awake.
“Because I think the men who came to your office were Thralls,” he said. “They all acted the same. As if given the same training, same instructions, despite being clearly from different backgrounds. Somebody used mind magic on them.”
“What are you talking about? They were just thugs. Thugs hired by Martinez and his stupid company, Northern Aspirations, Charters, Holding & Trading. God what a mouthful that is.”
Aaric went cold. “You’re absolutely certain of this?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s on the contract. I had to read it a dozen times. So ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” he said quietly. “It’s them. They’re back.”
“What? Who are back Aaric? You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“The Nacht,” he said, using the acronym of the company, even saying it making him suddenly very, very afraid.
“The Nacht? Who are the Nacht?”
“Vampires.”
28
Olivia felt her stomach congeal.
“The men in my office,” she stammered, struggling to get the words out. “Those…those were vampires?”
“No,” Aaric corrected quickly, though his voice was distant. Distracted. “They were Thralls. We haven’t seen the vampire yet. You would know if you had.”
That didn’t help the iceberg in her belly. “Oh,” she said in a very small voice. “Right, of course.”
“It’s okay,” he said, sweeping her up into a hug. “It’ll be alright. I just need to confirm a few things. Need to ask Parre about them; he’ll know more.”
Olivia’s heart broke as she watched Aaric’s face go from determined to devastated over the span of several seconds, as he remembered his friend was no longer there to talk to.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pulling the big man in tight, reaching up to run her hand through his finger-length hair, pushing it back off his forehead where it had fallen at some point. “I truly am.”
It felt impotent, whispering the same word over and over again, but what other choice was she given? He clearly was alone, distraught, and there was nobody else around. This mysterious mate of his wasn’t present, so until she showed up to do her job, Olivia was it.
“Can the vampire get to us here?” she asked, trying to bring Aaric back on subject.
“No,” he rumbled. “There are defenses against that. Powerful ones. It would take an army of vampires to break through, and we’d know if there was one.”
Olivia kept silent, her thoughts on the matter slightly different. According to what little he’d shared with her just a few minutes ago, dragons had operated under the assumption that vampires had been dead since the fall of the Roman Empire some sixteen hundred years ago.
If they didn’t know that was wrong, how could they know anything? They’d been asleep for a century as well. Who knew what could have happened while they were gone!
“Okay,” she said, stifling her own fears and taking his hand. “Come on then. If we’re safe here, we need to get some sleep. We’re of no use to one another in this condition.”
Dragging him along, she managed to find her way back to his quarters, only using one wrong door along the way. Once inside, she pushed him over to the bed.
“Get in. Sleep,” she ordered.
“Where are you going to go?” he wanted to know with a frown.
“The couch.”
His features fell. “Oh.”
That surprised Olivia. Had he been expecting her to join him in the bed? Was that what he wanted? She’d assumed he was done with her in that capacity. That he was saving himself for his mate whenever she appeared.
Did she want to be the other woman? Did that even matter with dragons? She knew so little about their culture, about their beliefs.
“I don’t want to upset your mate,” she explained in a small voice, trying to hide her own disappointment. “If she knew that we were sleeping together…”
Aaric shook his head. “You act like she’s here. Like I know who she is. But you’re wrong, Liv.”
It was the first time he’d ever called her by the short form, and to hear it now was somewhat shocking. Were they that close that she was comfortable with that? It wasn’t something she normally was okay with, but…but Aaric was different.
Besides, it sounds nice coming from him.
“You said you were done wasting your time,” she pointed out.
“I…Yeah, I guess I did,” he admitted, sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed. “It’s just a lot of pressure, I guess. I’ve been dealing with it ever since they woke me, and I haven’t been dealing with it well.”
Olivia went to his side against her better judgement, putting an arm around him. “I can’t begin to understand how you feel, but I get why you do. The fate of your race on your shoulders. But Aaric, I believe in you.”
He smiled sadly. “I’m not lost for faith in myself. I’m a dragon after all; we’re born with a bit too much of it. No, it’s the fact that I can’t do anything until I’ve found my mate. It takes both of us to bring another dragon to life.”
She ignored the dual way that statement could be taken. They weren’t talking about babies, she told her ovaries, reminding them they were prepared to birth humans, not tiny lizards. This was way beyond her despite what they were trying to say.
It doesn’t work that way. Why would you suddenly like the sound of that now, after all these years?
It didn’t make sense, but then again, nothing made much sense lately. Dragons, and vampires, and shifters.
Oh my.
The last came as Aaric pulled her down into his lap. “I…listen. Liv.” He fell silent.
She kept playing with his hair, giving silent encouragement.
“Will you stay?” he asked, the words slightly strangled.
“With you?” she asked softly.
“Yes. With me. T
onight. I…I could use your company.”
Olivia bit her lip, considering his words, her options, and the fallout of it all. “I don’t want to be used,” she said gently.
Shaking his head Aaric looked up at her. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to use you.”
“Then what did you mean?” she asked.
They both knew, but he was going to have to say it. Olivia needed to hear it from his mouth, off his lips. She was already uncomfortable, but there was no denying the chemistry between the two of them. Mate or not, she, like Angela had warned, just might have it bad for this guy.
Not that I’ll ever admit to her that she was right. That just can’t be allowed.
Aaric shivered slightly as he straightened, meeting her eyes. That strange golden light lined the outside of his pupils as he gazed straight at her.
“I want you to stay,” he said.
They both blinked in surprise at the strength, the passion of his words. She’d hoped he would say it, but she’d expected it to come out softer, less sure. Judging by the way his eyes widened slightly as he spoke, so had Aaric.
Interesting.
“Then I’ll stay,” she said, letting herself mold her body into his lap, relaxing into his embrace. “For the night.”
Aaric nodded. One of his lips may have twitched slightly, but he stayed solemn. “For the night,” he agreed.
His eyes, on the other hand, were definitely twinkling.
Then she saw nothing but stars and golden scales as he leaned in to kiss her, covering her mouth with his. Olivia welcomed those lips, the warm, sensual touch a reminder of their earlier frenzied lovemaking.
No, not lovemaking. That was fucking. Lustful fucking. Not lovemaking. There’s no love here.
A mild bitterness filled her taste buds as she reminded herself of the truth of it, but Aaric’s tongue washed that away a moment later as he pushed between her lips, exploring her mouth the way his hands were exploring her body.
Casual strength gathered in his arms, and he swung her around onto the bed without trouble, setting her back among the comforters. She watched with tender amusement as he got on top of her. This was very unlike the Aaric of before.
