Carol had no desire to see Dragonspace ever again. It would remind her of flying over it with Seth, enjoying the beauty of the place while she shared her bond with him.
But she found herself taking Lisa's hand and walking out into the alley behind Ming Ue's to the very spot she'd seen Seth the first time.
"Well go from here," Lisa said.
The alley was deserted, and there was none to see Lisa swirl her silver lights around Carol and carry her through a slit of nothing to a bright world. Carol blinked at the sudden sunshine, incongruous with dark and cold San Francisco.
Lisa formed as the silver dragon and carried Carol, slip-sliding so smoothly that Carol barely noted the transitions�the rocky cliffs flowed into green meadows or white-capped seas without a jolt.
They emerged into a wide desert valley that Carol recognized. Her heart felt hollow, but she said nothing.
Lisa flew upward and slid through the crack in the cliff that led to the cave of jewels Seth had carried Carol to before. The silver dragon magic set the gems to dancing, and Carol slid to her feet among the pulsing light.
Lisa became the human Lisa, able to be human or dragon wherever she chose, but the cave was also filled with the dark hulk of a black dragon.
"Malcolm?" Carol asked. She touched his silver-black threads and found the first notes of a familiar name. Malcolm swung his gaze to her from far above, and she instantly backed off.
"He's here to help," Lisa said. "He thought it was possible, but we didn't want to tell you until it was time."
"Tell me what?" Carol asked in a hard voice.
"That you carried Seth's essence. Malcolm has been reading up on fire dragons and what happens when the fire meld occurs. He also helped me with this."
She led Carol around the large black wall that was Malcolm. Behind him, in a hollow at the back of the cave, the gemstones had been piled high. On them, encased in a bubble of silver light, lay Seth.
He was in his human form, his perfect male body laid out straight and utterly still, his eyes closed as though he were sleeping. Light glistened off his red hair and shimmered on his skin.
Carol gasped and stepped back. "Lisa, no."
"He's in stasis," Lisa said. "Exactly as he was the moment he drew his last breath."
The gems shone and sang, tingeing the silver with the colors of the rainbow.
Tears ran unheeded down Carol's cheeks. "Why isn't he a dragon?"
Stasis, Malcolm repeated from far above. Lisa did it because she wanted to help him.
"Help him what?" Carol asked in anguish.
"I didn't like seeing you grieve," Lisa said gently. "I know what I'd feel like if it were Caleb. I'm the silver dragon�the most magical being in the universe, as Caleb keeps reminding me. I thought I might be able to save Seth, but it turns out I can't."
"So you brought me here, why? To have me watch him die again?"
Malcolm answered, Because you might be able to revive him. In my studies of fire dragons, I learned that when one is in danger of dying, he can bury his last spark of fire, his essence, in another, and if it is given back to his body quickly enough, it can save him.
"If that's true, why didn't Seth mention it? He never said, 'Here's my flame for safekeeping, Carol, put it back in my body if something happens.' "
"He might not have known," Lisa said. "It's an instinctive thing."
Unique to fire dragons. They always have to be a little bit different.
Carol thought of one of the last things Seth had said to her, Keep singing my name, and I'll always be part of you.
"He did know," she whispered. "Or he guessed."
"If you feed his essence back to him, it might work," Lisa said.
"Might," Carol repeated. "Lisa, don't do this to me."
"I can't force you. But I think it's worth a try."
Carol looked at Seth's inert body. She'd do anything to bring him back, anything to have him touch her again and say her name in his dark voice. But she also feared giving herself false hope.
At least, she thought, I can kiss him good-bye.
"All right," she said in a dull voice. "What do I have to do?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure," Lisa answered. "Even Malcolm's books don't say. Maybe the Dragon Master in you knows how, or Seth will be able to instinctively take it back."
Carol walked slowly to the pile of gems, gazing down at the man she loved. She reached to touch the glitter of silver, and it tingled on her skin like electricity.
I'll go, Malcolm said, his body moving surprisingly quickly across the cave floor. If he wakes, he'll become a dragon, and if he finds another dragon in his lair...
"Thank you, Malcolm," Carol said, still looking at Seth.
She heard Malcolm reach the slit and squeeze his huge body through, then sensed him take wing.
Lisa remained. She gave Carol an encouraging look. "Are you ready?"
"No. But let's do this and talk about how hard it will be later."
Lisa gave her a sudden smile and a hug, then she stepped back to let Carol be alone with Seth.
Carol had no idea how to reach him through the stasis bubble, but she found she could put her hand through without changing anything. She touched his face, drawing the ball of her thumb across his cheekbone like she'd always loved to do. His eyes were closed, his dark lashes resting on pale skin.
Carol brushed his hair back from his forehead, leaned down, and kissed his closed mouth.
A spark jumped from her lips to his, and she felt the tattoo on her back sear and bum. She drew a sharp breath, then her mouth filled with fire, and she breathed it straight into him.
Seth's body jerked, then the flame outlined it, swirling with the jewel colors and the silver. He coughed once, then his eyes flew open.
"Carol." Lisa shouted.
She jerked Carol back from Seth just as the silver shimmer burst into shards that flew outward and smashed against the walls. Seth gasped, and then his human body twisted sharply and elongated into the iridescent hide of the fire dragon.
He filled the cave, breathing fire across the stones, which flared madly. He shot to the top of the tall cave then became living flame.
If he noticed Carol and Lisa huddled together for below him, he made no sign. His fire roared around the walls of the cave, lighting up gems buried in the rocks until the entire cave spun with color and music.
The dragon fire writhed in delight. He was a wild thing emerging from his chrysalis, spreading his wings to fly free.
Seth streamed toward the crack in the wall, flowed out, and was gone. The stones rang for a few moments in his wake, then quieted a little at a time.
The two women stood together, hand in hand, breathing the now heated air in silence.
"He'll come back," Lisa said to Carol. "He needs to get the shock out of his system, then he'll remember and come back."
Carol wondered if Lisa knew that for certain or if she was trying to comfort her. The truth was that Seth was a wild creature, not a human, and there was no predicting his reactions or what he'd do.
"Take me home, Lisa."
Lisa looked surprised. "You don't want to wait here?"
"No." Carol drew a breath, feeling her heart ache. "I want it to be his choice. I pulled him to me twice, and this time, I want him to choose whether he wants to see me again."
The Dragon Master in her sighed in disappointment, but Carol ignored it. She loved Seth, and she knew the best way she could show him that was to let him go.
"If you're sure," Lisa said quietly.
"I'm sure."
Lisa squeezed her hand and flowed her silver essence around Carol again. She flew with Carol through the gap in the rocks and out into the bright valley, morphing into dragon form to fly back across Dragonspace.
Carol scanned the horizon for Seth or his fire as they went, but she saw no sign of him.
It was late when Carol reached her apartment. Lisa didn't want to leave her alone, but Carol told her to go home to he
r babies.
Carol expected to break down and cry once Lisa was gone, to wash away her shock and grief and loneliness in a flood of tears.
Her eyes remained stubbornly dry. Maybe she'd cried too much in the last few days, maybe she had nothing left to give.
She performed her grooming ritual instead. She soaked in the bath, not wanting to enter the shower where she and Seth had made love so many times. She scrubbed and dried herself, trimmed her nails, rubbed lotion on her arms and legs. She did it all without feeling, going through the motions without truly registering what she did.
She'd bought herself a new robe, leaving the white silk dressing gown with the red dragons hanging in the closet.
She couldn't bring herself to look at the dragons' night-dark eyes anymore.
Pulling on the innocuous blue terrycloth, she made her way to the kitchen to fix a cup of orange blossom-infused oolong tea.
As she popped off the lid of the canister, a blinding white light flashed in her living room. The light died to a fiery flicker, and Carol rushed out, tea cannister in hand.
A pillar of fire stretched from her rug to the ceiling, a string of flame that burned nothing. It swirled around itself, then coalesced into the form of a tall naked man with rough red hair and eyes like midnight.
Carol froze, her mouth dry. Seth turned his head and looked at her, his gaze burning her all the way across the room.
He didn't speak. They stared at each other in silence, no thought threads, no music, nothing.
Carol set down the canister of tea, her hands shaking so hard she almost missed the table. She walked slowly toward Seth, not quite believing she hadn't fallen asleep and dreamed this.
Seth watched her without speaking until she was close enough to touch him. She reached for him, and her fingers brushed hot skin.
Now the tears flowed. "Seth."
His hand came up to cup her face, but with curiosity, as though he'd never seen her before. "I like when you say my name."
She wiped her eyes. "Do you remember me?"
He cocked his head, studying her with dragonlike intensity. "You are Carol, the Dragon Master. You summoned me."
"No, I didn't." She did a quick scan through her mind, but she wasn't singing a note of his name. She'd made herself not even reach for it.
His touch softened, and he traced her cheek. "Then why was my pull to you so strong? I returned to my cave and you were gone, and I went halfway across Dragonspace looking for you."
"Maybe it's the essence you gave me."
Seth looked over his shoulder at his back. "It seems to be there."
Carol peered around him, warming at the glimpse of his delectable backside and the flame tattoo stretched across his hips. "It looks like it did the first time I saw you."
"You have none of it now."
"Just whatever is in our child." Carol laid a fond hand on her abdomen, a gesture that was becoming familiar. "Maybe that's what called to you."
He also touched her abdomen, his hand gentle. "It was the strongest pull I've ever felt, and it was here." He touched his breastbone. "I wanted to see you, to hold you again."
Carol's tears threatened to spill out again. "I left because I wanted being with me to be your choice, not mine. Do you understand?"
He tilted his head to the side again. "I want to touch you and never stop touching you. I want to wake up with you and go to sleep with you. I want to hear your voice, and I want to hear your music in my head."
"I want all that, too." She smiled shakily. "Except the other way around."
"I want this because you're my mate."
"Or maybe that's why you want me to be your mate."
Seth blinked, and she saw the dragonness in him recede a little. "Or maybe I came back to ask you why you decided to steal my fire and charge out to face a demon-god." She grimaced. "I thought we'd get around to discussing that."
"You did it because you didn't want me to die."
"Of course I didn't want you to die. Why did you come after me?"
Seth slid his arms around her waist, his hard arousal pressing against her. "Because I didn't want you to die." His breath brushed her lips. "Sing my name."
She stared. "No, I don't want to hurt you."
"Sing it. Like a mate would sing to her lover."
Carol wasn't certain if the Dragon Master in her would know the difference, but she touched his face and let her heart summon the notes of his name.
The syllables filled her head, the strange music that meant this man in her arms, her fire dragon, her Seth.
Their threads touched and wound gently together, no binding, no snarls. Seth smiled and then he began to sing her name.
The notes sounded like a combination of Carol and Li Mei and other music she didn't recognize but now knew had been a part of her all her life. She realized some of the music came from the mother and father she'd lost, and from Ming Ue and Shaiming and the love with which they'd sheltered her.
Last the music combined with a shimmer deep inside her that she knew was their child.
"Seth," she murmured, layering that name in with the music. "I love you."
He held her close, rubbing his face in her hair. "I love you, my Carol. My mate."
She held onto him while he kissed her, a spark of his fire warming her skin. She slid her hands to his firm backside, the warmth in her changing to heat and need.
She pulled her mouth from his, ready to suggest they adjourn to the bedroom, but Seth growled low in his throat, and she realized the bedroom was too far away.
The next thing Carol knew, she was on the carpet, laughing into Seth's mouth, as his hands made short work of the robe. He had it off and his skin against hers in seconds.
"I take it you missed me," she said.
"I missed you every second you were gone. I don't ever want us to be apart again."
"I'm not a dragon," she pointed out. "You live for thousands of years."
"You're a magical woman, and I'm sure Lisa will help you." He nipped her lower lip. "Too much talking."
She laughed. "I like that about you, Seth. You get down to essentials."
He growled long and low, and she closed her mouth. He opened it with kisses, then he slid his hand between them, finding her hot, wet, and ready for him.
As he slid inside her, she dared to say one more thing. "Thank you for coming back."
He kissed her again for answer and began to make love to her, until she cried out with the joy of it.
"I love you," he said hoarsely as he came. "I love you so much."
Those were the best words in the world, the only ones she needed.
* * *
Turn the page for a preview of
Allyson James's new erotic paranormal romance
MORTAL TEMPTATIONS
Available January 2009!
Midtown, Manhattan
When Patricia descended to investigate the noise in her antique store, she found an unconscious man with a broken wing stretched across the floor.
He didn't have white angel wings or transparent dragonfly wings�they were a shiny, satiny black, feathers gleaming and glistening in the dawn half light as they spilled around his body. One wing cradled his bare torso as though cushioning his fall, and the other was broken.
Patricia played her flashlight over him, taking in broad muscular shoulders, a chest dusted with dark hair, narrow hips hugged by blue denim, and a strong throat encircled by a thin gold chain. He had dark hair long enough to flow over the store's ugly beige carpet and a square, handsome face. His eyes were closed, lashes resting on firm cheekbones. His legs were twisted, and one arm had been flung out to break his fall.
And wings.
The broken wing lay at a right angle to his back, the ends fanning across the floor. Strewn about the feathers were things he'd swept from the counters when he fell�an entire stand of necklaces, a box of sparkling pins, and a bisque doll who'd landed a few feet from him with her legs wantonly in the air.
Patricia couldn't blame her. He was sexy as hell.
Her two cats, Red Kitty and Isis, sauntered in from the back room. They sat on their haunches and stared at him, probably wondering whether he was overlarge prey or someone with the potential of filling the food bowl. Either way they couldn't lose.
Were his wings a costume? But no costume-shop creation could match those glorious feathers and the perfection with which they fit him. When she crouched down to carefully touch the feathers, they were warm and alive, the tips fluttering beneath her fingers.
Being psychic, Patricia was no stranger to creatures of the night, but she'd never seen anything like him. His psychic aura was incredible�hot and wild with lightning flashes that stabbed through the shields she usually kept in place. He didn't feel evil, but he didn't feel good, either. Most humans were a mixture of both, but supernatural creatures tended to be one or the other.
Her flashlight took in the bruise that stained his temple blue and purple. He was a big man, and anything that could take him down would be�bigger. But he was alone in the shop; there were no other auras in the place but his, hers, and the tiny, vibrant ones of the cats.
When she touched the bruise, he moaned but didn't wake. She fetched her first aid kit from the tiny bathroom and doctored the bruise with Bactine, but she wasn't sure what to do about the wing.
It was broken halfway down. Her fingers found the thin middle bone bent. She had no idea how to treat it. but it couldn't hurt to carefully straighten the bone and wrap the whole thing with an Ace bandage.
The man twitched and moaned throughout the procedure, but the pain wasn't enough to wake him. She fetched a pillow and arranged the man's head gently on it, then covered him with a blanket.
That was all she could do for him. She was not a witch or a healer; her gift was the ability to read auras of people past and present and to detect the psychic imprint they left on objects. That was why she liked antiques�she could feel the history of the objects and the people who'd touched them. Antiques weren't dead pieces of the past to her but shadows of living, breathing entities.
Patricia curled up on a Belter gentleman's chair and tugged a second blanket over her knees. Red Kitty joined her; the long-haired torn never passed up the chance for a warm snuggle. Isis, the black-and-white female, stayed next to the man to keep watch.
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