by Ava Benton
That was another thing which managed to get under my skin. The way they all insisted on referring to her as the “poor dear” or “poor lamb.” As though they knew her or understood anything about her reason for jumping.
“Maybe she was on the run from the law,” I suggested, more irritable than ever. “Or she smuggles drugs for a local kingpin and has been keeping part of the proceeds for herself—but he’s on to her now, and she decided that jumping from a cliff was preferable to what he had in mind for her.”
“Oh, you.” Ainsley waved me off. “Watching too much television.”
“Just the same, it’s perfectly possible. She might not be the unblemished flower you all insist on making her out to be. I think it’s a good idea for all of us to maintain a degree of realism. This way, when we learn more about her, it’ll be easier if what we learn is unsavory.”
They blinked, silent for once. Ainsley cleared her throat, throwing a glance at Isla before asking, “When did you become so cynical?”
“How can you not be?” I retorted. “After everything that’s happened recently. How can either of you allow yourselves to be overtaken by flights of fancy when it comes to this girl?”
“She’s… interesting, is all,” Isla murmured, blushing.
“She’s a human being,” I snapped. “Which means she’s far more complicated than a tragic heroine from a film. She didn’t fling herself from a cliff over a broken heart or terminal illness. That would be too easy. Nothing is really that easy.”
I got up, suddenly restless, and stalked from the room.
The girls whispered about me as I left—no surprise there.
Within an hour, every living being at the resort would know that I’d been acting strangely.
Even Mary’s men, who loved their gossip just as dearly as a group of old ladies in a sewing circle.
I supposed they needed a way to pass the time, the same as anybody, but would’ve preferred I not be one of their methods for doing so.
“What was that all about?” Gate jogged to catch up with me as I strode down the wide corridor.
The shining floors gave voice to my footsteps, which echoed off the high ceilings.
“What was what?” I asked, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. “Coming up for air, are you?”
He smirked at my joke. “Yeah, well, even our endurance has its limits.” He touched my arm, signaling for me to stop when we reached the lobby.
It was empty for the time being, though I knew better than to believe we had privacy there.
Even so, he lowered his voice and continued, “I was just walking up to the door when you were arguing with the girls.”
“I wasn’t arguing.”
“You berated them as if they were children.”
“They were behaving like children.”
“Much the way you’re behaving now.”
I stiffened. “If that’s the way you see it, perhaps I should leave.”
“You don’t want to leave,” he called out to my retreating back as I walked away.
I paused, reflecting on the truth in his words. No, I didn’t want to go. Not until I at least heard her voice. That was what disturbed me most.
He must have taken my silence as the response he was waiting for, since he said, “I didn’t understand it at first, either.”
“Understand what?”
“What my dragon wanted. It made no sense. Martina was a nuisance—headstrong, impossible, and very likely a grave liability to our mission.”
“Putting it mildly,” I muttered, remembering how close I’d come to throwing her bodily from the boat.
“And yet, something was in my head, telling me not to be foolhardy,” he went on, crossing the lobby to stand by my side. “I didn’t like it. I didn’t want things to turn out that way. I felt as though I had no control over my own destiny.”
I remained silent, though my dragon did just about everything he could to tell me Gate was right. That I had no control because he was the one who ultimately decided what we would and wouldn’t do, who we would and would not create a future with. He wanted the girl in the bed, the girl without a voice or a name or a past.
“I don’t know who she is,” I reminded him.
“You do. Or, rather, he does.”
Meaning the dragon.
“What if that isn’t good enough? I mean, suppose she’s really the sort of person I described back there? A criminal, a thief, someone whose presence in my life could spell danger for us?”
“What do you think the odds of that really are?” he asked, not unkindly.
He could’ve grilled me mercilessly, told me I was acting like an old woman—and I would’ve deserved all of it, and more. Instead, he was my friend, as he’d always been.
“Sincerely, Miles. What do you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do—or, you would, if you’d just let yourself feel it, rather than trying to understand and dissect and determine what the future will look like with her in it. The fact is, there’s no way to tell what the future holds. We can only take what life hands us, and life handed you this girl. Are you going to waste time pushing her away, telling yourself the situation isn’t quite right? Or are you going to embrace her and let her in?”
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” I chuckled in an attempt to cover up the roiling, raging conflict in my head.
“I think you’re deliberately putting up barriers because you’re not accustomed to the dragon demanding something like this,” he replied. “It’s one thing for him to demand you let him stretch his wings, but another to give in when he demands his mate.”
“How did you stand it? I mean, is this what you went through?”
“Raking myself over the coals? In a way, yes,” he replied, shaking his head ruefully. “It was misery.”
“I’m sure I didn’t make it any easier for you.”
“She didn’t make it easy,” he replied with a shrug. “And nothing worthwhile ever is.”
“There you are!”
Speak of the devil, and she shall appear, I thought to myself as Martina, and her mother approached from Mary’s office.
She slid her arms around Gate’s waist and flashed me a smile. “I heard our patient is awake.”
“News travels fast around here, doesn’t it?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. It amazes me that we manage to keep anything confidential. How did she look to you?”
Beautiful. Intoxicating. Mysterious. Could give voice to those thoughts. “Alert. Pained, but alert.”
“We can bump up the pain meds a bit more, now that she’s awake,” she suggested. “It was necessary to dial them back in order to allow her to clear up a bit.”
“She won’t need them for long though, will she?” Martina asked, directing the question to Gate and me.
I recalled what Phillip told me after he’d set her breaks. “This is a bit more complex than the wound you received. There was damage to the muscle and ligaments when the bones broke through the surface. Even so, it shouldn’t take more than a week for her to mend completely.”
“What do you think she’s going to make of that?” Mary asked, raising an eyebrow.
She was merely voicing a question I’d asked myself dozens of times during my long, silent vigils over the sleeping girl. What would she think? How would she react?
“I think we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do,” I decided.
“We?” Gate snorted. “I think you mean you will. You’re the one who saved her.”
“Phillip saved her,” I reminded him.
“Which he never would’ve been able to do had you not kept her from crashing into the rocks. Don’t you think she’s going to want to know how she didn’t die on impact? I think that’s the first explanation she’s owed. Which should come from you. It’s only fair.”
“Fair,” I groaned.
Since when was any of this fair?
6
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Savannah
I was having a dream. I knew it was a dream, since what was happening in it was not the sort of thing that happened in waking life.
I’d always wondered about people who claimed to have lucid dreams, who could alter the course of what they dreamed of rather than simply witnessing what went on around them.
I was on the back of a dragon, flying through the air.
Yes. This was a dream.
Where it came from, I had no idea. Pain meds, I guessed. Because I’d never dreamed anything so crazy before. Or so vivid.
The scales under my hands were a deep golden color which seemed to glow in the light from the sun, threatening to blind me. I had to look away, over the top of the beast’s horned head, off into the distance. There was nothing but blue water and even bluer sky in front of us.
Wind roared in my ears, and I turned my head just enough to catch sight of massive wings beating against the rush of air. They were gossamer thin, like the wings of butterflies. How could anything so delicate be so strong? How did they keep us airborne? I didn’t want to think on it too long, or else the delicious excitement racing through my veins would turn to fear, and that would ruin everything.
But it was a dream, wasn’t it? So there was nothing to be afraid of. I sat astride, my thighs pressed against the dragon’s sides, and the play of muscle beneath them had a humbling effect.
I was nothing compared to the beast I rode. It could kill me in an instant and fly off without a care, or toss me from its back and let me drown in the bottomless ocean beneath us. I ran a hand over its scaly back and heard a low rumble—whether it appreciated the caress or not, I couldn’t say.
A joyful whoop escaped me, and I laughed at the sound of it. I had never felt so free.
“Wake up, sleepyhead.”
I stirred at the sound of a familiar voice.
A crooning, cajoling voice. Almost teasing.
Memory stirred and warned me, too late, not to open my eyes. I was already in the act of doing so when everything came together, and I realized who was waiting for me.
His cold eyes were the first thing I noticed.
Beady eyes, eyes without a drop of empathy or even a touch of kindness. He looked down at me as though I were his possession.
“What did you think you were going to accomplish?” he whispered, almost seductive.
I had always been able to see how he could bend others to his will, as he had a strong personality. It just so happened to repulse me.
“Antonio,” I breathed, my heart going a mile a minute and nausea threatening to overtake me. The entire world was crashing down around my head as I stared up at him in horror. “How did you find me?”
“Don’t you know by now?” He leaned closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne and the liquor on his breath. His already nasty eyes narrowed, making him appear even more menacing. “You can never get away from me. You’re mine. There’s nowhere you can go where I won’t be able to find you.”
I sat partway up, my mouth open in a silent scream. Only silent because I couldn’t breathe—had I been able to draw a full, painless breath, I would’ve screamed the place down.
A sharp, stabbing pain hit me in the ribs and radiated through the rest of my body, freezing me stiff.
“Relax, relax.”
A pair of hands settled on my shoulders, and a soothing voice worked its way into my consciousness.
“You had a bad dream, is all. You’re safe here. You’re safe with us.”
My eyes darted around, taking in my surroundings.
I was in the same room I’d woken up in earlier in the day, except there was no more sunlight. It was night, pitch dark outside the still-open doors leading to the private patio.
A single lamp shone in the corner, casting the room in shadow.
The hands and the voice belonged to a woman.
I looked up into her face as she eased me back down to the pillows. A beautiful face—slightly lined, somewhere north of fifty years old but not much further, I decided.
Her long, thick hair was shot through with gray and twisted in a braid which she’d coiled around the crown of her head. I liked her instantly—more importantly, I trusted her.
“You don’t have to try to speak,” she murmured, running a cool cloth over my forehead.
I hadn’t been taken care of in so long. Too long. Since Mama was alive. None of the nannies Papa had hired since that time came close to delivering the sort of genuine care and affection she’d been so good at giving away for free.
“You need to rest up and get your strength back. It takes a lot of energy to heal up after the sort of injury you received.”
A dream. Antonio wasn’t really here. He couldn’t possibly know where I was. I wondered if there would ever be a time when my dreams weren’t haunted by him. Would I ever be able to escape? How far would I have to go to get away without him somehow finding me?
“Just rest,” the woman murmured, then went back to humming some tuneless but soothing melody which managed to return my breathing to a normal rhythm. “Ach, you must have suffered terribly to wake up the way you just did. You poor lamb. You have nothing to fear here.”
I hoped she was right about that. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into the calm she wove all around me. That, plus whatever they were giving me for pain, left me floating in that in-between place, somewhere just short of sleep but just short of wakefulness, too. She patted my hand and got up, the bedsprings creaking slightly as she did.
It was true. I had nothing to fear. There was absolutely no way for anyone to find me, no matter how hard they tried. Anyone would assume I had jumped and my body washed away…
Jumped.
My consciousness came screaming back to the forefront of my mind, wiping away all traces of relaxation though I kept my eyes closed. I had to get a few things straight, or else I’d go crazy. But if I spoke, they’d start asking questions. Like why I’d jumped and what my name was.
I’d already decided before falling asleep again, after that kind, dark-eyed man left my room, that I would stay quiet as long as possible.
There were drawbacks to that plan. I couldn’t ask where I was or how I’d survived, for one. No way I had lived through the fall—yet here I was, in a bed, being treated by very kind people.
I still felt the moisture from the cloth on my forehead, and the breeze coming through the open doors cooled it deliciously. I was very much alive, according to the evidence around me. How was it possible?
A door opened, and I tuned my attention to the sound of footsteps as someone entered the room.
“How is she?” The voice was a whisper, but I sensed it came from a man.
“She’s been sleeping since I took my shift,” the woman replied, clicking her tongue. “Just woke from a nightmare, the sweet girl. Was absolutely terrified.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No. Not yet. Though she did try to scream.”
“I wonder what she was dreaming about.” He paused. “She’s going to want to know soon.”
“Aye. I’d thought of that, too. What will you tell her, Miles?”
Miles. Was he the one who’d been with me when I first woke up?
I wanted to peek at him but thought better of running the risk. If they knew I was awake, they’d stop talking.
“I’m not sure yet, but she’ll have to know the truth when she heals. No human could possibly heal that quickly without help.”
What was he talking about? I certainly didn’t feel as though anything was healing. Every movement was torture, even with medication in my system.
I was in what amounted to a hospital room, complete with a bedpan sitting on a chair to my left and an IV bag hanging above the bed.
His choice of words rang in my head, too, like an alarm bell. No human. What else was there?
“Well, I’m here to help with whatever you need,” she promised. “She seems like a nice girl.”
“How would you know, if you haven’t spoken to her?”
“A mother knows these things,” she assured him with a gentle laugh. “And I’ve been a mother more than long enough to know how to read a person without their saying a word.”
“Or even their being conscious?” he pointed out.
“Or even that, you cheeky thing.”
“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll take over from here.”
“Good luck.” She kissed him.
I heard the smack of her lips on his cheek, or so it sounded, before the door opened and closed.
The energy in the room had changed since he’d entered, which told me I wasn’t imagining things earlier. There was something special about him, something I couldn’t put my finger on.
He was unlike anyone I had ever known. And I was beginning to think he was the one who’d rescued me. Perhaps it was the solicitous tone in his voice when he asked about me. As though he cared, more than he would if I were nothing but a vague curiosity.
I opened my eyes slowly, fluttering my lids as though I were just waking up. Letting my gaze fall on him as I looked around, rather than looking straight at him.
The way he smiled told me I had him fooled.
“Hello,” he murmured, taking a seat beside the bed. He dwarfed the chair, the way he probably dwarfed most things in comparison with his sizable frame.
I nodded slightly, the corners of my mouth curving up into a slight smile.
“Do you need anything?”
I shook my head.
“Not even something to eat?”
Another shake. If anything, I felt slightly nauseated at the thought of food.
He frowned. “You should have an appetite by now. We’ll have to do something about that.”
I pointed to the door using my good arm, then to the chair in which he sat.
He understood. “Bonnie? Her shift was over, so I took her place. I hope you don’t mind.”
I shook my head. Bonnie. I would have to create a chart in order to keep track of all the names. I’d already seen several young women throughout the day as I went in and out of consciousness—the flash of a face here, the sound of a voice there. And earlier, when I had been too deep in thought to fall asleep, I’d heard many pairs of feet pacing the hall outside my room.
