by Paula Quinn
“The government,” River told her. “All of them,” she added when she thought Ivy might ask that next. “Mr. Wilder,” she said, offering him a smile. “Please, come in.” She stepped aside to allow him entry. “My sister, Ivy, was just about to fetch my father from the pub.”
“It’s early,” he remarked softly, entering the house.
“It’s been a difficult morning for him. We are now poor.”
He shook his head. “My organization has purchased cattle from a farm in Glengorm, well known for their prime Scotch beef, to replace what you lost. They should arrive in the next couple of weeks.”
“Seriously?” Ivy asked, her eyes, as well as her smile were wider than usual while her gaze cut to her sister. “That had to cost a fortune.”
“It’s nothing,” he replied, making light of it. “It won’t make a dent in their pockets.”
“Thank you,” River told him, unable to believe what he was saying. They weren’t going under because of him? It was too much to owe a person. She should refuse, but her father…
“Ivy, go get Da. He’s going to want to hear this.”
She watched her sister head out the door and then beckoned Mr. Wilder to the sitting room. “Can I get you something to drink? Eat?”
“No,” he said, taking off his pack and jacket and taking a seat on a small sofa. “We should talk before they get back.”
River couldn’t stop her gaze from taking in the broad flare of his shoulders in his tapered button-down shirt. “Of course,” she said soberly and sat across from him on another larger sofa.
“There is another dragon. A Red. My people know of it now and have informed me that it’s been spotted in the French Alps.”
“So we’re safe?”
He nodded. “I’d like to stay around for a few days just to make certain. I’ve taken a room at the B&B.”
Why? Why was he doing all this for them? Why was he being so truthful about the dragons? She would have thought this would be more like a Men In Black thing. Was he going to pull out a wand and zap her memories clear?
His lips curled into a devastatingly charming smile that burned her insides and made her want to go to her room and compose something. Who was he? Who did he work for? Would he really kill Drakkon?
“You said you knew where the Red dragon was. What about the White?”
The front door burst open and Ivy reentered the house with Hagen Wray trailing behind his energetic daughter.
After brief introductions, River hurried off to make some tea, mostly for her father. Ivy followed her into the kitchen to inform her that she was going to the Munroe’s farm to see Graham and tell him the good news.
“Mr. Wilder is seriously gorgeous, River,” she whispered into River’s ear before planting a kiss on her sister’s cheek. “He seems nice and he has a freaking great job. Do something about it.”
River only laughed and swatted her away. What was she supposed to do? Throw herself at him? No, she’d done that with Colin and he didn’t respect her enough to call her when she left. She also couldn’t forget the fact that, despite what he’d done for her family, he was a dragon hunter and he’d kill Drakkon if given the chance. She didn’t want him to. Drakkon was magic come to life. He was beautiful and terrifying, and rare.
“What’s this I hear about you replacing my cattle?” she heard her father ask when she returned to the sitting room with a tray.
“Not me, Mr. Wray,” the hunter told him. His demeanor had changed to one of respect and politeness, but his voice was still husky and low and dangerous to her bones. “The people I work for.”
“And the police aren’t coming?” her father asked, taking his cup. “Smells like a cover-up to me and you’re paying us off to keep quiet.”
“Da!” River admonished gently. He was obviously drunk. She hoped the stranger didn’t take too much offense.
Mr. Wilder looked a bit taken aback, but then he smiled. “It’s all right.”
“I’ve seen it happen before,” her father insisted. “Twenty-two years ago. After the blue dragon flew into that man’s window. I saw it all. I know what happened, but it all went away. The body, even the glass on the streets. It was all gone in an hour and nothing appeared in the papers.”
“You saw a dragon?” Wilder asked her father, looking as stunned as if someone had told him that dragons were real.
“I sure as hell did. It was blue—or green with purple-tipped scales and it blocked out the sun. That’s what made me look up. Other people saw it, too. I don’t know why they never went public with it. They must have been paid off.” Her father’s bloodshot eyes roved over Mr. Wilder’s near-white mane. “He had hair like yours, with less color maybe.”
“The dragon?” Wilder asked, his gaze fixed on her father.
“No. The man who jumped, or was thrown out the penthouse window,” her father replied, proving he wasn’t so drunk after all. “He had white hair. I know what you want me to believe, but I’m not crazy.”
“We know that, Da,” River comforted him, moving closer to him on the sofa and putting her arm around him. She’d always believed that he believed what he’d seen. He wouldn’t have risked losing his wife and the respect of his friends if he didn’t. She’d never mocked him for it or asked him to stop telling people about it. But she had never considered the weight of what he carried, until now. She hadn’t told him about seeing the White dragon. He would tell everyone they knew, anyone who listened—and she’d made a deal.
“I’m not here to make you believe anything, Mr. Wray,” Wilder said gently. “You saw what you saw.”
River wanted to smile at him for handling her father so delicately, but this was serious business and she didn’t want to appear the grinning fool.
“Right,” her father laughed. “And now you want us to believe a gang of kids did this. Do you know the power it takes to tear an eighteen hundred pound bull in half? You might not be here to change the truth, but you aren’t here to bring it. So keep your cattle and leave my house.”
“Da, you don’t understand,” River told him in a soothing voice. She couldn’t let him do this. Wilder was protecting them by covering it up. “Please, let me explain.”
“Miss Wray,” Wilder interrupted, “please, let me.”
She turned to him, hoping he would comfort her father with the truth—to verify that he wasn’t insane.
He tugged at the stray hair falling down his cheek. “This is some kind of birth thing. My sister’s hair was whiter than mine. It was handed down to us by our father, the…ehm…” he paused as if what he meant to say were too difficult. “…the man who jumped or was thrown from the window. He was my father. It’s a long, complicated tale that I won’t bore you with now.”
His father? River thought, staring at him. What the hell…? It was too much of a coincidence. Unless it was all an elaborate lie and he was a wacko. Had she let a crazy guy into her home because he was drop-dead gorgeous and he knew weird stuff about dragons? No. He knew too much. He knew about Drakkon, and this new one, the Red. It would make sense that he’d be a dragon hunter since his father had been killed by one.
If he was who he said he was, then everything her father claimed he saw was true. He’d never denied it despite what it cost him.
“And the beast that killed him?” her father asked on a whispered breath.
River swiped her nose. She knew what hearing this meant to her father. Validation.
“Marrkiya, the Aqua.”
Her father whimpered and River drew him in closer. He looked stunned and relieved, as if the weight of a twenty-two-year-old truth had been removed. “Marrkiya, the Aqua,” he said, giving the monster that haunted him its name. “Seeing it was…” He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “It was this impossible thing come to life. Terrifying and beautiful. I felt as if I’d stepped out of this world and into another.”
“I’ve heard stories of Marrkiya’s power and beauty,” Mr. Wilder told him in his quiet voice. “What
did you see the dragon do?”
River’s father didn’t hesitate to answer. He never had—but this time he had a willing, believing listener.
“I heard him first. His wings. I could hear them because everything else got quiet.”
River nodded. Everything had gone silent just before she had seen Drakkon move.
“His great size cast a shadow on the streets, the windows, the people looking up. About seven of us saw him flying, his deadly talons opening as he broke through the window. Glass fell everywhere. Folks started screaming. More people looked up. I know they saw it, but no one would come forward after a few days. I did though. And it changed my whole life.”
“How did it change your life?” Mr. Wilder asked him in his softly spoken voice.
“No one believed me. My friends laughed at me and finally drifted away. My wife could not stomach the ridicule and left me and the girls.”
“I’m sorry,” the hunter said.
“And we’re sorry about your father,” River told him. “What had he done to Marrkiya to make the dragon go through a window for him? Was your father simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there more to it than that?”
“There was more to it than that. But as I said, it’s a long, complicated story.”
She watched how his tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth when he finished speaking—shy yet sensual. Like him. How could a man who looked like he did be shy? She realized it was part of his charm—what made him so believable.
“I’d like to hear it sometime,” she said, her curiosity genuinely piqued. Dragons were shrouded in mystery and legend as ancient as time itself. She’d love to know more about them. Would Mr. Wilder tell her? Would Drakkon? She was grateful to Wilder for telling her father the truth, but why was he telling them so much?
He curled one end of his mouth at her. “Maybe later?”
Maybe.
“Where is the Aqua now?” her father asked him, breaking River’s thoughts of spending more time with Mr. Wilder.
“He is no more. You have nothing to fear.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m just happy you believe me.” Her father smiled genuinely for the first time since his wife left him.
“I do,” the hunter said.
Her father’s smile faded “Your father…”
Mr. Wilder held up his hand to stop him. “I didn’t know him. But because of his death, an organization of hunters was formed, trained in the art of taking down dragons. That’s why I’m here. But it’s safest if we keep this and everything I told you quiet. People know about them. Let that satisfy you.”
“It does,” her father promised with tear-filled eyes. “It finally does.” He quickly gathered himself and set down his cup and straightened his shoulders. “It was a dragon that killed my livestock, then. How many of them are there, and how afraid should we be?”
“There are very few,” Mr. Wilder told him, “and our tracking devices show that the one that did this is gone. As I told your daughter, I’ve taken a room in Tarbert and will stay for a few days just to make certain all is well. And you’re correct. I am covering up the fact that it was a dragon or you’ll have people here you won’t like.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right,” her father agreed. “And about the cattle, tell your people I’ll accept them.”
Mr. Wilder caught her eye and shared a slight smile with her.
“But it’s you I want to thank, young man.” Hagan Wray rose to his feet. “Thank you for the truth.” He held out his hand as Wilder stood with him. “I’m in your debt.”
“No,” the handsome hunter smiled and shook his head. “You are not.”
River wanted to thank him, too. She didn’t want to like him, but she did. She understood why he was a hunter. A dragon had killed his father. She wanted to know why. It chilled her blood but part of her suspected there was a reason the Aqua had singled out Mr. Wilder’s father. How much did Jacob know about dragons? How could one man stand up against such a mighty force? She wanted to ask him, to find out everything.
“I think I’m going to lie down for a bit,” her father announced. “It’s been an eventful day and the sun hasn’t even gone down yet. I have much to think about. You’ll stay for dinner.”
“Thank you.”
The hunter was staying for dinner. What would Drakkon think?
River rose from the sofa and kissed her father on the cheek then watched him wander off to his room. He walked with a bit more of a bounce in his step. She didn’t know if he was happier about his livelihood being given back to him, or because he was finally able to talk about his dragon with someone who truly believed him.
Alone again with the kind stranger, she smiled a little breathlessly when she caught him staring at her. “I appreciate what you did for him…and for Ivy. It’s almost hard to believe you’re a trained killer.”
“I haven’t killed any yet,” he replied, spreading his curious gaze over her features. “You sound like you don’t approve.”
It was the way he looked at her, as if her answer mattered to him for some reason. Why should it? Why would he care if she approved of him or not? “It’s not that,” she admitted, weighing her words carefully while she tucked her hair behind her ear. “But if a dragon is peaceful and almost extinct, why not let it live?”
“The reasons are piled in your friend, Noah’s truck.”
“But the White didn’t do it.”
His gaze softened on her. She suddenly felt like the room was too small. Did he move a little closer? His scent washed over her, like the morning dew with a hint of spice. “You protect him.” His voice rolled across her ears like the waves of a fathomless sea.
She crossed her arms over her chest, but it provided no defense against his slow, beautiful smile. “I would protect anything that was innocent.”
“You saw Drakkon.” Now, he did take a step forward, closer. “What was he like?”
She stared up into his cloudless, blue eyes, the silky thread of palest gold falling around his hard, angular jaw. “Like you,” she said softly, then blinked and laughed at herself. She sounded as crazy as people accused her father of being. “I mean he was big and white and his eyes—”
Ivy entered the house in a whirlwind of blue hair and cigarette smoke. River scowled at her when Ivy hurried toward her. “Were you smoking?”
“No, Graham was, but listen, Graham’s band needs new music—”
“No,” River told her. She’d heard Graham’s band and nothing she wrote suited the head banger’s style.
“If they want to use something you wrote,” her sister continued, “they’ll pay five hundred to buy it.”
Five hundred was a good chunk to put towards her future. But her work as heavy metal? “I don’t think it’s a right fit, Ivy.”
“Please, River,” her sister begged. “Just let him play something and then decide.” She turned to Mr. Wilder. “What do you think?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes on River. “Let him play something.”
River thought about it. She hated saying no to Ivy, and Ivy knew it. She knew how to play those big, blue eyes to her best advantage.
“You never know,” her sister went on. “Your song could be a great hit for Graham’s band. It could launch his career, and yours.”
River doubted it, but…she did have something new. It had taken her almost two months to compose and it still wasn’t finished. It was something wild and as untamable as the wind. Something inspired by a force of nature. “I may have something that will fit Graham’s style. It’s almost done.”
Ivy squealed and threw her arms around her. “I’ll go tell Graham that we’ll see him at the barn with the music tonight.”
River nodded and caught Mr. Wilder smiling as her sister rushed back out. She eyed his clothes, his expensive boots. He probably had never heard music outside of a grand theatre. “I’m told the barn has good acoustics.”
“Barns are great for band practice. I miss playing in on
e.”
“Oh?” she asked, eyebrows lifted. “You play?”
“I was the lead guitarist with Everbound.”
Her eyes opened wider. A dragon hunter/musician. What other surprises did he plan on springing on her? “I’ve heard of them! You guys are pretty popular. Why did you leave?”
He shrugged. “Just time for something new.”
Something new. The music in her room. Oh, she’d love a professional opinion. Drakkon loved her work but this one was different. “Would you like to hear my song?”
He inhaled, looking uncertain. “I shouldn’t. I have…ehm…things to—”
“Please,” she said softly and added a smile when he finally nodded.
Chapter Eight
Jacob’s legs felt weighted to the ground and, with every step he forced his feet to take back to the sofa, his head shouted for him to go the other way. He should leave now while he was still a man. He remembered the last time he’d heard River’s music. What if he transformed right here in her sitting room? She thought he looked like Drakkon. Could he ever tell her that he was Drakkon? He should go, before things got more complicated. But he stayed, watching River disappear down the hall.
What was he doing getting deeper and deeper into her life? Replacing her cattle, telling her and her father about Garion’s foster father, Marrkiya, sitting here waiting for her to sing to him. His head wanted him to run, to fly. But his heart refused to let him.
He’d lied to her about Red being in the French Alps. He didn’t want to scare her. He’d stay for a few days and make sure Red wasn’t coming back. And then he’d leave.
But presently, he sat back down.
He thought about her father seeing Marrkiya. Helena had told him in Fiji that Marrkiya, the last of the ancients that Jacob’s father had transformed, had been the one responsible for Patrick White’s death. And he knew why. He didn’t blame Marrkiya. He didn’t know why he’d agreed to tell River.
He’d probed Hagan Wray just a bit, enough to understand the effect seeing Marrkiya had had on his life. He knew nothing he said was going to change the man’s mind, so he hadn’t tried. Besides, he’d sensed River’s heartache for her father. He’d wanted to help.
