Demand of the Dragon

by Kristin Miller

  Lucy couldn’t explain the reason, but she wanted to see the portal that robbed the last three years from her. She had Tristan’s medallion, and once she popped open the chest, she’d want to get out of the castle and on their way as soon as possible. She knew it.

  If she wanted to see the portal, it was now or never.

  Lucy nodded, willing her frayed nerves to settle.

  Caleb took Lucy’s hand and pulled her past the hearth and down a long, winding hallway that snaked around the southern wing. A narrow stairwell appeared on the right and descended into the dark, around and around, spiraling into the earth. They rounded the corner, taking the stone steps slowly, one at a time. The lower they traveled, the colder the air grew, freezing Lucy’s breath, and numbing her hands. They seemed to descend forever in the dark, silently, holding onto one another. Just when Lucy thought they should turn back, that she really didn’t need to see the portal, Caleb slowed. The stairs ended at a wood-slatted door that Lucy had never seen before.

  Someone had built the door to keep people from finding what was on the other side.

  Caleb fiddled with a heavy-duty combination lock that secured the handle, then popped it open and swung the door wide. Was he the one who had built the door?

  “There it is.” Caleb moved aside so Lucy could see the portal with her own eyes.

  “It’s so―” the portal was set into the back wall of a narrow room. It was black and oblong, no bigger than a television set “―tame.”

  Not at all what she’d been expecting.

  She stepped closer, but Caleb held her back. “Probably best for you not to get too close. The portal is sealed, so that no other creature can come out of it, but portals are temperamental things and can expand or contract at a moment’s notice. You could still get sucked inside from this end.”

  She eyed its hidden depths, squinting to make something out inside the dark mass.

  “You don’t want to be anywhere near this thing if it decides to expand,” he said. “I’ve seen it take up this whole room like an enormous black hole.”

  Her feet turned to stone. “Is that what happened that night? When the beast came through?”

  As Lucy dragged her eyes away from the swirling black mass and set them upon Caleb, her breath caught. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Hell, his tanned skin had faded so pale, he could’ve been the ghost.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, squeezing Caleb’s hand. It’d clammed in seconds, chilling through her palm. “What’s the matter?”

  He shook his head, but answered anyway. “Lucy, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

  Here we go, Lucy thought. He loved someone else. He valued their friendship so much that he wanted to stop getting physical. He had to leave to secure the rest of the portals on the isle and she’d never see him again.

  “Tell me.” Lucy’s heart ached as if someone had carved out a hole. “Please, just say it.”

  “Your brother’s disappearance, the mourning you went through, every tear you’ve shed for him...” He swallowed hard and brushed his thumb across the back of her hand. “...it’s all my fault.”

  Blood that had frozen in Lucy’s veins while waiting for a response thawed then flowed heavy.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “How is any of that your fault?”

  “I should’ve been here,” Caleb whispered, his voice grave. “I left him to work this portal alone. It’s relatively stable and has been for as long as we know. I knew Tristan would be able to control it...I didn’t expect a beast like that to come through.”

  “Caleb, you couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

  “If I’d been here, if I hadn’t been flying around the Sindraco village, we would’ve fought the beast together. Tristan wouldn’t have gone into the portal. I wouldn’t have followed. This whole mess would’ve never happened.”

  Lucy read the guilt in his eyes and could almost see the weight of the past bearing down on his shoulders. A few key words plucked at Lucy’s memories of that night. “You came down to the Sindraco village the night Tristan disappeared?”

  Caleb nodded, his Draco specks shimmering honey-gold. “I went to find you. I had to see you, though I don’t really know why.”

  “I thought I saw you that night, flying over the southern ridge of the village. I waved, but you didn’t see me.”

  “No, I saw you, but I couldn’t land. I knew I couldn’t have you the way I wanted, but I couldn’t stay away from you, either. Guess not much has changed.”

  “Caleb—”

  “I came back to the castle the instant I heard your brother’s cry.” Caleb’s strong hands found her shoulders. “Please forgive me for bailing on my duty to stand by your brother’s side.”

  “I don’t think it’s my forgiveness that you really need.” He needed to forgive himself. “But if you want it, you have it.”

  He seemed to tighten from her words, his jaw clenching into a solid rock. “I don’t feel any better. You gave your forgiveness too easily.”

  “Would you rather I rake you over the coals?”

  “No, but damn it, all this wouldn’t have happened this way if I’d done my job.”

  “You went after him, Caleb.” Lucy cupped Caleb’s chin in the heart of her hands and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. “You went inside a portal without hesitating, without knowing what was waiting for you on the other side. You lived in a wasteland without giving up the search. Hell, you’re still searching now. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” The dark, depths of his eyes twinkled. “I know I’ve behaved like an ass, but it’s only because I don’t know how to put what I’m feeling into the right words. Luce, I’ve never felt this way before. I think I’m in love with you.”

  Lucy’s heart raced. Could she freeze this moment? Savor it? Stick it in her bag and take it with her? Her eyes fluttered closed. She had to hear it one more time.

  “Say that again,” she said.

  Caleb caught Lucy’s mouth and kissed her so softly that the rest of the world melted away. “I think I’m in love with you.”

  Caleb’s words, and this moment, meant everything to her. Even though he’d added I think to the beginning, as if he didn’t want to admit that he’d fallen in love with her fully, Lucy knew how much it took for Caleb to say what he had.

  With a sigh, Lucy said, “And I think I’ve loved you since the first moment I met you.”

  He seemed to shudder, his shoulders giving a little hitch before he scooped her up and squeezed his arms around her middle. This was what counted, and what mattered.

  But her world still wasn’t complete. Her brother could be out there somewhere and they needed to find him. Lucy tugged on the chain around her neck and brushed her thumb over the face of Tristan’s medallion.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get that chest.”

  With renewed energy surging through her system, Lucy led the way this time, up the stairs and down the hall. When she reached the second door from the great room, Lucy stopped. A small S had been carved into the top of the door.

  S for Sheffield.

  Lucy pushed open the door, and strode inside. The room used to be den, with tiers of books lining the walls and cobwebbed sconces flanking the shelves. A maple wood desk stood in the center of the room, a lone guard in a cramped chamber.

  “Is that it?” Caleb asked from behind her.

  The chest was just like Lucy remembered: mahogany, robust with intricate carvings, dwarfing the desk where it sat. If someone were to rest in the cracked, leather chair behind the desk, they wouldn’t be able to see over the chest to the door.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She tried to swivel it towards them. It didn’t budge. “Heavy, too.”

  “Do you know how to open it?” Caleb asked, as he stood beside her.

  “We’ll see.” Lucy removed the medallion from her neck and placed it inside a hollowed-ou
t portion on top of the chest. It fit perfectly, sliding into place. As she pressed down on the center, the chest released a tiny click. Slowly, praying that an answer waited inside, Lucy lifted the lid.

  Tiny chips of diamonds were scattered around the velvet bottom of the chest.

  “What the hell are these?” Caleb asked, skimming his hands through the dull fragments.

  Lucy’s mind raced. “They’re diamonds.”

  “Really?” He turned a few over in his hand. “They look like worthless pebbles.”

  “They’re not worth much.” An idea struck. “Unless you want to swim into Merfolk territory.”

  Caleb tensed, dropping the diamonds back into the chest. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

  “Because there are active portals in Merfolk territory.” Lucy zoned out as memories invaded her mind. Memories of a friend she and Tristan played with when they visited the coast. A friend who strayed far from home and showed them a cave only accessible by water. “Just like the portal in Emerly’s cave.”

  “Who’s Emerly?” Caleb’s dark eyes smoked like coals in a furnace. “What cave?”

  Lucy couldn’t help smiling at the revelation that had been tucked away for so long. “She’s a mermaid we met when we were kids. She lives in the Drakein Cliffs where we used to play, or at least she used to. There’s a cave she showed us that’s only accessible by water with an active portal in the center of it. Tristan must’ve been saving these chips to go back there someday. Do you think there’s a possibility Tristan could’ve escaped through that portal?”

  “I don’t know,” Caleb said, striding past Lucy. “But if you think there’s an unsecured portal in the cave that your brother used to visit, we should go there first. Portals have a tendency to anchor on certain shifting energies. If Tristan has passed through it before, it could’ve recognized him and pulled him that direction again.”

  After pocketing a handful of the diamond chips, Lucy followed Caleb down the hall and into the great room. He veered straight for a dresser tucked beside a teeming bookshelf.

  “It’s almost midnight,” she said. “Don’t you want to wait until daybreak?”

  “I’m not waiting another second. I owe it to your brother to find him now.” Caleb rummaged through the top drawer, came up with a tiny, leather satchel and tossed it to her. “Take this. If we’re meeting up with a mermaid, we’ll need it.”

  Lucy held the bag in her hands, feeling something heavy shift inside it. “What is it?”

  “Gold. If we want information, that fishy friend of yours is gonna want something in return. Mermaids can’t turn down a heap of gold.”

  Caleb was right. Merfolk were known to be greedy shifters, stealing what they could from lost ships and bargaining with the other shifting races for expanded territory. But Emerly had been different. Not once had she ever asked for gold. She’d asked for Lucy’s friendship and trust. She’d asked Lucy and Tristan not to reveal her whereabouts to their Draco clan.

  As they made his way up the stairs leading to the tower, Lucy hoped Emerly remembered her. And she prayed the mermaid wouldn’t be too irritated that she’d just revealed the cave to a dragon on a mission.

  By the time Caleb reached the tower, Lucy was hot on his heels. The storm had passed over them and headed east, leaving the coast covered by a star-studded sky. A humid breeze swept across the tower, dragging hints of salty sea breeze to Lucy’s nose. They weren’t far from the Drakein Cliffs; it’d take Caleb ten minutes to fly there. Twenty, tops.

  “Mount up, beautiful,” Caleb said, dragging Lucy’s attention away from the horizon.

  Heavens above, he was glorious.

  Golden moonlight shone off Caleb’s bare skin, making him seem more like a bronze statue than a Draco. His muscles twitched and flexed, preparing for the shift. The breadth of his back was wide, tan, and glistening gold. Was it wrong that she wanted to skim her hands over the hard, sculpted ridges of his body?

  “My clothes are in the bag.”

  Jarred into action, Lucy slung the bag over her shoulder and waited with bated breath against the archway.

  The archway.

  Her hands mindlessly skated over the stone, remembering how their bodies had come together there. How their bodies had exploded with passion, reverberating deep tremors of love into their hearts. When would Caleb say that he loved her directly, without attaching things that made his statement safe?

  It might not matter anyway, she chastised herself. If they didn’t find Tristan, she was set to claim someone else. The thought crushed her, and threatened to turn her heart to stone.

  Thwap!

  Caleb’s thick shaft of a tail smacked against the wall. He’d shifted while she stood there, dazed, too anxious to get going to wait for her to finish her thoughts.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Lucy said, unable to tear her gaze away from the gold-plated dragon stomping impatiently in front of her.

  Stroking his sleek armor of buttery scales, Lucy got the strangest feeling. As though he was hers, and she was his. Without a claiming ceremony to deem it so. Things had never felt more right. As if she’d been born for this moment.

  With a giant leap she straddled his middle, slid forward into place and coiled her arms around his neck. Caleb turned and looked back at her. His snout was long and softly rounded, and his thick, black lashes fluttered like fans. Caleb was gorgeous...but from a single, pounding huff and another stomp of his front leg, he asserted his dominance. He may’ve been easy on the eyes, but he was commanding. Rough and dangerous. Plucked straight from Lucy’s deepest fantasies.

  As Caleb bent low, flattening out, Lucy held her breath. She’d flown at night during training, but she’d never gotten over the sheer beauty of it. Soaring beneath the stars was magical. Breathtaking. Nothing like flying beneath the hard glare of the sun.

  With a jolt that jump-started Lucy’s heart, Caleb lunged from the tower and took flight, drumming his heavy wings through the midnight air. He soared, higher and higher, until Lucy thought she could touch the stars. As Caleb leveled out, Lucy clenched her thighs around his middle and reached up. It felt as if the moon was within grasp. The stars were bright marbles of light she could hold in her hand. And Caleb was there to experience the majesty with her, every inch of the way.

  When the sea peeked over the westernmost mountain ridge, Caleb’s entire body flexed with excitement, from the stiff girth of his neck to the fierce whip of his tail.

  “Yeah, we’re close,” she said, pointing to a set of cliffs that had always reminded her of pictures of the white-faced cliffs of Normandy. “Emerly used to live there, to your left.”

  Caleb rolled his back in response and picked up speed, flapping his wings harder and faster, with deeper strokes than before. They rocketed high over the Drakein Cliffs. Plummeted down their jagged surface. Skimmed over the black-sand beaches Lucy remembered so well. They glided over the cresting waves of the Pacific, Caleb’s golden wings reaching wide and free. Sea spray kicked up to meet them, dusting Lucy in mist.

  “See that beach over there?” Lucy leaned forward, pointing to a small alcove of black sand secluded by a horse-shaped section of cliff. “That’s where we’ll find her.”

  Chapter Six

  By the time Caleb shifted back to Draco form and changed into his clothes, Lucy had knelt by the water’s edge with her back to him.

  “What are you doing?” Caleb asked, watching Lucy swirl her fingers in the water, round and round. It wasn’t until he crept closer that he saw she was drawing the infinity symbol—the number eight flattened on its side.

  “This is how we used to call Emerly when we were young. I guess she feels the vibrations in the water and knows it’s either me or Tristan.”

  Laughing, Caleb stood behind her. “Morse code of the ocean?”

  Lucy gazed up at him and smiled, her silky, blond hair falling in front of her face, stinging his heart. “Something like that.”

  As she continued to swirl he
r finger, tracing an invisible line in the foaming sea, a pang of want sliced through Caleb’s gut. He wanted her stroking his back that way. Tracing the lines of his stomach and the stubble of his jaw.

  “Feel that?” she asked, slowing the circle, teasing the ripples of water.

  Oh, Caleb felt it all right.

  Shudders rolled through him. He had to bite back the desire to tackle Lucy, roll her over and make love to her right here on the hot, black sand.

  Something had definitely changed inside him.

  When they left Draco Cavern, Caleb could’ve sworn his newfound feelings for Lucy were purely physical. He wanted to be close to her. To be inside her. To consume her with joy and light their passion on fire. But he also wanted Lucy the same way he always had—beside him, laughing with him, exploring the isle with him, warming him with her kindness and gentle touch.

  He wanted Lucy any way he could get her. He wanted more.

  He’d never get enough of her.

  “Emerly’s coming,” she whispered.

  “From where?” Caleb’s throat cracked. “How do you know?”

  Lucy stood beside him, scanning each tumbling wave. “See that violet stream of light seeping through the water?”

  Barely, but it was there; a tiny hint of purple in the moonlit blue.

  “I see it.”

  As the violet hue burned brighter, a woman emerged from the water. Well, half a woman, anyway. The bottom half of her remained hidden under the waves. Caleb suspected it was so that her tail could remain submerged. Emerly was probably the most beautiful mermaid he’d ever seen, though her beauty still paled compared to Lucy’s. Sandy-brown hair flowed full and wild, falling over her shoulders and down to her waist. Diamond dust sprinkled through her wet locks, shining brilliantly white in the moon’s glare. Innocent brown eyes stared back at them, though Caleb got the feeling Emerly was far from innocent. Mermaids always were.

  “Great seeing you, Emerly,” Lucy said, kicking off her shoes. She waded into the water, soaking her jeans. “It’s been too long.”