by Paula Quinn
This isn’t real. River told herself over and over while snow, shaken from its place by the thing’s movement, drifted down on her. She wanted to run, to scream. In fact, she was screaming—in her head. She was too stunned and terrified to use her vocal chords except to expel tight, little cries she tried for some foolish reason to muffle with her mittens.
Heavily-armored in pearly white scales, it rose up high above her on its gigantic legs. Arms, slightly smaller, and long, white talons clawing the air. It turned its spiked head and aimed its debilitating lapis gaze straight at her.
She didn’t move, didn’t breathe as she stared into its chillingly beautiful eyes. It had a wide, angular snout and scaly nostrils that blew out a gust of warm air, pushing her hood back from her head.
Dear God, help her. She tried to cling to consciousness. It was a dragon. Her mind couldn’t take it in for a minute. It was a real dragon. Her father had been right. He’d spoken many times, in fact, too many times, of a great blue-green-colored beast flying across the sun, blackening the land and flying into someone’s penthouse window. No one believed him and he’d lost much because of it.
Drawn to the magical, River had always wanted to believe dragons existed. Now, she did. Dragons were real, and big, and very dangerous, living in obscurity among humans.
The fantasy had just gone dark.
She wanted to faint so that when it killed her, she wouldn’t feel its long fangs ripping through her. It was enormous, with tear-shaped scales and…her knees nearly buckled beneath her…giant, leathery wings that stretched out over twenty-five feet.
But since she didn’t faint, she decided to try to save her life—and the lives of others. Dragons breathed fire, didn’t they? It could kill Ivy, her father, the people from the village. Who could fight this thing if it flew off to any of the villages? They wouldn’t even know it was there until it was too late. She would have walked right by it. Her heart thumped so hard it made her feel sick.
Obscurity was its weapon.
“Wait!” She held up her hands. “Don’t eat me!”
It looked at her as if it understood what she was saying, as if there was intelligence behind its piercing gaze.
“I’ll…I’ll make a deal with you,” she managed, thinking she should close her eyes to help her stay conscious. Looking at it sapped the breath from her lungs. “Don’t eat me or go to the villages and I promise I won’t say a word about your existence.”
What was she doing? It didn’t understand her and, even if it did, her end of the bargain didn’t hold much weight. She wouldn’t say a word if she was in its belly.
The beast stretched its neck toward her, binging its jaws close, enveloping her in its breath. She finally closed her eyes, fighting back a scream, waiting for the pain.
I don’t eat people.
His voice, husky and male, resonated through her head and rumbled through her blood, her bones, dominating every other thought. Her eyes shot open. Was that…his voice in her head? How? How was she hearing him? She covered her ears with her mittens and finally fainted.
Just before she lost consciousness, she would have sworn the dragon licked its chops.
Chapter Three
The Drakkon watched the girl crumble to the ground. He lowered his spiky head to her body and sniffed. She smelled like a flower he remembered tasting as a human and…cattle. She wasn’t a virgin but there was something in her wide, luminous gaze besides terror, something filled with wonder and a thrill of excitement that made him wish she would wake up. He thought about tasting her. Just a lick. He was Drakkon and, though newly risen, he possessed all the desires of such a beast. He wouldn’t eat her though. There was still enough man in him to quell that desire.
Man. The thought trickled across his mind and changed him into one almost instantly.
He exhaled a breath he felt like he’d been holding for hours. With it, he shed his scales, his wings, his fire. He stood naked over her now, a man in body and mind. A thread of disappointment settled over him. Just for an instant, and then it was gone. How had he let this happen? He’d let someone see him. What should he do? Get dressed. He was freezing his ass off. He looked to the side of the wall and his backpack and hurried to it.
He’d flown.
And he’d been seen. What the hell should he do now?
Sobering, he turned back to the girl and hurried into his jeans, socks, and Ferragamo boots. Who was she? What was she doing out here alone in the middle of nowhere? His teeth clinked together while he pulled a sweater from his pack and put it on. Why the hell hadn’t he chosen someplace warmer?
He thought people didn’t live here. He’d chosen this island to land because of its isolation. So much for that.
She stirred and he tossed on his coat and took off running around the crag.
He hid from her sight while she awakened, but he didn’t leave. He watched her sit up and look around. Her hood had fallen back spilling lush, russet hair over her wide, terrified eyes.
It had been hard to hold his control when he’d opened his scaly lids and seen her, heard the cries of disbelief and terror in her head. He’d almost transformed then and there. It had taken everything he had to hold on. It was bad enough that she’d seen him as Drakkon. He couldn’t let her see who he was as a man without probably destroying his life if she recognized him from the band or she found him on the internet. He’d waited, fighting the urge to turn with every fiber of his being, watching her while she stared up at him, battling her fear.
He knew how she felt seeing Drakkon for the first time. He’d been eleven the first time he’d seen one. It made him doubt his senses, for a moment, his sanity. If it hadn’t breathed fire in the air and killed over forty of Jacob’s relatives, he would have grown up convinced that the terrifying, beautiful beast hadn’t been real. But it was, and it was married to his sister.
The girl stood up and backed away a few steps. He expected her to turn and run, probably back to her friends and family with her tale of a sleeping, white dragon. But he remembered something she had said about a deal. She wouldn’t tell anyone about him if he didn’t eat her.
A deal with a dragon. What kind of courage did this woman possess?
She didn’t run. His heart began to race. Would she look around the crag and find him? If he turned again now, he’d lose half his clothes and validate her worst fears. Why wasn’t she running away? Why was she staring at the rocks as if the dragon were still there?
“Hello?” she called out with trepidation in her voice.
Really? She was really calling him back? He couldn’t help the smile curling his lips. She’d battled her fear and come out the victor. He knew what those kinds of fights were like and how difficult they were to win. He was tempted to reveal himself. But she wasn’t expecting a man—and not being one was too dangerous.
Too bad. Besides having more backbone than anyone he’d ever known, except maybe his sister, she was pretty, with eyes like vast sea blue oceans and long legs in her tight-fitting jeans. Another time, perhaps, after he’d learned to control the Drakkon and teach it as it grew stronger, not to eat people.
He turned away from her finally, pulled on his woolen cap and set off down the other side of the crag. This wasn’t a good time in his life for a relationship, no matter how short it might be.
Everything had changed.
Staying hidden shouldn’t have been a problem.
What kind of bad Drakkon luck was it that the part of the world he’d chosen wasn’t so uninhabited after all?
Who was the woman who looked him straight in the eye, unsettling his Drakkon guts? As much as he tried to put her out of his thoughts, the memory of looking into her eyes stayed with him on the way to Tarbert, the island’s main settlement, and the only place to catch a ferry off Harris.
He had much bigger things to consider—like his wings. He thought of them on his walk, letting them replace the memory of eyes the color of the sea…or was it the sky?
The sky.
He looked up at the rolling clouds and fought the urge to transform and splash through them.
According to Drakkon lore, Jacob’s brood of Whites had once been considered “peace-keepers”. Jacob had spent many of his formative years and some of his recent ones, as well, proving the whole “peace-keeping” theology was bullshit. A man chose who he wanted to be and Jacob had chosen to cause trouble. He’d been hauled off from boarding school when he was thirteen and spent the next two years in juvenile detention facilities across the U.K. Things hadn’t been much better when he got out. Four months later, he got caught in a stolen car and went back for fifteen more months. After that and a vow to his sister, Helena, that he would never do anything illegal again, he kept his word and did a few modeling jobs and then formed his band. But he had already grown tired of the drugs and partying lifestyle. He’d made enough money to retire but what would he do with his days? Hunt Drakkon?
After walking for about an hour, crossing a bridge over the Adhainn Mharaig, and descending toward another loch, the fragrance of fresh air grew tainted with the scents of a distillery, car exhaust, and steam engines. He entered Tarbert and made his way to the ferry terminal to book his way to Uig in Skye. He’d hang there in the mountains for a week or two and practice until the snows melted. It was the perfect place to blend in with the snow and mist. After that, he’d make his way home to New York and plan a new course for his life.
He had an hour to kill before the next ferry left and was thinking about visiting the distillery when he saw the Harris Tweed Shop up the road and decided to go in. He could use a warm scarf. Being in Fiji made him forget how cold it could get everywhere else. Currently, ten degrees Celsius felt like ten below. The shop was small in comparison to the ones on the mainland and in England, but surprisingly large inside, with long rows of tweed bags and women’s purses, coats, vests, kilts, scarves, and much more.
An older woman sitting behind a small counter smiled at him as he looked around. The door opened again. Jacob tuned from his examination of a soft scarf in different shades of blue.
“Morning, Margery,” a girl in her early twenties called out and came inside. She swept her hood off her head to reveal dyed blue hair that was short on one side of her head and longer on the other. “Where’s River?” Without waiting for an answer, she spread her dark blue eyes over the shop. When she saw Jacob, she went still and blinked.
Jacob smiled. He didn’t need the blood of Drakkon running in his veins to know he turned heads and stopped hearts. He was crafted in long, lean muscle beneath alabaster skin and a mane of silky, shoulder-length hair. He didn’t need the power of telepathy to draw someone’s attention. The striking blue of his eyes, his full, pouty lower lip and strong, angular jaw served the purpose well enough. He knew how to use it all to his advantage, but he didn’t now. He wasn’t sure why.
“You a tourist?” she asked through red lips. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Yes, I’m in from New York,” he told her.
“You don’t sound like you’re from America,” she said, giving him a more thorough looking over. She didn’t trust him. He imagined that in small towns like this one, the locals didn’t trust many.
“I was born and raised in Scotland,” he supplied and returned to the scarves.
She didn’t speak to him again but turned back to Margery. “So, where’s River?”
“She hasn’t come in yet,” Margery told her.
“She hasn’t?” The blue-haired girl sounded concerned and slid her gaze back to Jacob at the same time he looked at her. “She left home before me.”
Just then, the door opened yet again. This time, when Jacob looked at it, he forgot the scarves…and everything else. It was her—the girl from Maraig. What were the chances of coming inside this shop and seeing her again? They had traveled different paths to the same place. Twice now.
“What kept you, River?” The girl slapped her palm on her thigh and then went to her. Jacob turned his back on them, wanting to remain unnoticed for a little while longer. “You’re never late. You look upset. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I…I saw…”
Jacob closed his eyes waiting for her to tell her friends about seeing a dragon. Should he get in touch with Garion? What would they do? He sure as hell wasn’t going to hurt anyone.
“…someone from University,” he heard her say. “An old friend.”
He breathed with a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t tell. He couldn’t stay.
He wanted to look at her. He wanted to probe her thoughts, a benefit of his alteration, and hear what she was thinking. Who was this River who’d girded up her courage to strike a deal with a dragon? Who’d dared to beckon the beast back? He wanted to know more about her.
“What are you doing here, Ivy?” River asked, sweeping past him and pulling off her parka. “Why aren’t you at work?”
The aroma of vanilla and the faintest traces of cattle and chicken washed over him, making him a bit hungry again. He turned to watch her enter a small room. His gaze dipped to her narrow waist and full hips in her snug jeans, up her back to her russet mane catching light from a small window and illuminating her in shades of amber and deep orange. She hung up her coat and turned to leave the room.
I heard its voice in my head. No one will ever believe me.
Probing her thoughts, Jacob hoped she was right.
When she saw him, she stopped moving. He was momentarily captivated by the way light radiated from her eyes as they grew even wider.
“I didn’t see you there.” Her gaze fell to his near-white hair peeking from beneath his hat. I didn’t see it against the snow. Are there more of them out there, camouflaged against mountains and valleys?
Jacob listened in with a heavy heart. He’d changed this girl’s life today. Would she try to forget what she’d seen? Or would she become obsessed with it, the way some others had after sighting Garion in the sky? Most of the world didn’t believe dragons were real. River had seen one up close and lived to tell about it. Would she?
“Do you need help?” she asked, stepping closer.
She was tall, her gaze, just inches beneath his. She was even more beautiful up close. Vastly different from the made-up and highlighted women he knew. Absent of color except for that of the wind on her cheeks and the beauty of her eyes painted in the colors of the winter sky and summer sea, her face was a compelling blend of beauty in its plainest, most genuine form. Her smile was filled with grace, her gaze filled with strength and longing.
Longing for what? he wondered, understanding the emptiness it left. He understood all too well. He could probe deeper, but it was too big of an intrusion. He hadn’t needed to be taught that his new power of telepathy had its moral limits. Besides, why was he trying to involve himself in her thoughts or her life? He’d had enough unsatisfying encounters to know he didn’t want any more or need any more.
“No,” he told her. “I’ve found what I needed.” Flight, fire, freedom.
She moved past him, then paused and turned back. “Have we met before?”
Did she recognize the fire in his eyes? What if he told her the truth? What if he told her he was the dragon she’d seen?
He smiled, though these, the first sacrifices for becoming a near immortal Drakkon were bitter ones.
He could never tell anyone.
Any woman he ever loved would die before he did.
“No,” he said, setting down the scarf. He shouldn’t stay another moment. “No, we haven’t.”
Chapter Four
Jacob didn’t look back as he made the trek to the terminal and certain facts settled over him. He no longer knew his own body. Even his thoughts felt alien. Why did this girl, River, entrance him? Why was he suddenly concerned about getting to know a woman? He never had been before. Women were a pastime, an enjoyable way to get from one day to the next. Nothing more. Was it only because, now, he would outlive every human being he knew? Was he trying to pitifully cling to s
ome human need for companionship? In that case, what good would a human woman do him? She’d grow old and die and he’d go on living. Alone again.
He looked at his watch. Fifteen more minutes. He sat on one of the benches and waited, looking out over the loch. The sooner he got out of here, the better. He had training to do.
Dragon!
He sat upright and looked around. He was alone. The voice was in his head.
Are you there?
It was River, coming through loud and strong. He hadn’t severed the probe. Hell, she was brave.
I know you can hear me. I know that was you in my head when you told me you don’t eat people. Was it true?
He shouldn’t answer her. He should let her begin to believe he wasn’t real. But a part of him didn’t want her to. He also didn’t want her to live out her life in fear of knowing he was real and might return to eat her.
Yes, it’s true. He changed his voice in her head so she didn’t recognize it from the shop.
She didn’t answer for so long that he probed a little deeper. He heard nothing. Had she fainted? He stood up and thought about going back to the shop to check, then sat down again when he finally heard her voice, soft, shaky, hesitant.
Where are you?
Far away, he told her. But I will return if you tell anyone about me, as is our deal, no?
Well, you never agreed, she challenged.
I’m agreeing now.
I won’t tell anyone, she promised on the softest breath.
Then I won’t come back.
He spotted the ferryman making his way to the boat. Finally. He rose to his feet.
Is this real? Am I sick? Mad? Am I really having a conversation with a dragon? You can’t be real.
He paused his steps and looked back. Would you rather be mad, or forced to keep a secret of this magnitude? He was curious about her answer since he had a secret of the same size to keep.
