But part of her brain poked at her. Cyrgyn could be back any minute. It was enough to douse the flames, and she dropped to her feet and eased back. Ryc kept his hands at her waist, didn’t let her move away, and she thought he might be smelling her hair. She had to swallow hard a few times.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I couldn’t stay away. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Alexa’s traitorous heart thrilled to his words. She pushed away from him. “What were you sneaking in here for? I could have killed you!”
She whirled away and uncocked the gun, double-checking the safety before retaping it under the table. She was once again speechless. Heat seeped into her back and she knew Ryc was behind her. She leaned one palm on the table top and put the other hand over her eyes.
“I can’t, Ryc. I can’t do this to Cyrgyn.”
“Alexa, it’s no easier for me. I understand. Truly.” He tugged at her shoulder until she straightened and turned, then pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around his waist and fought the sobs that crowded her chest.
Ryc’s low voice surrounded her, soothing and calm, even as his hands stroked her back and her loose hair. “Cyrgyn is more than a friend to me. I’m more than an employee or mercenary or even champion to him. Doing anything with you would be a betrayal.” He gripped her shoulders and eased her back until he could see her face. “I’m aware you’re committed to him. I don’t seek to break that.”
Alexa noticed his odd speech pattern and realized he did it when he got emotional. “Then why are you here? Do you know how hard it was for me to leave you yesterday, then face him when I got home? I felt vile. He watched me with the saddest eyes, and I couldn’t go near him.” She covered her face again, remembering his pain. How could she even consider getting involved with Ryc?
She looked at him, and the answer was obvious. He was sexy, but he was also smart, and understood her world. All of it. She didn’t have to keep secrets from him—it surprised to her realize that somewhere along the way she’d given him her trust.
As Cyrgyn had.
“Oh!” Disgusted, she walked away to the rail. For a split second she imagined just tipping over the top, falling to the concrete below. Ending the whole stupid mess.
The second passed quickly and she didn’t dwell on the thought or the repercussions of such an act. There had to be a way. She needed Cyrgyn, needed her soulmate, before she destroyed him because of a little lust complicated by respect.
“You’d better go,” she said without turning around.
“Will you be all right?”
“Of course. But it’s probably better if you don’t come back.”
“I’ll have to.” He was near again, standing next to her at the rail. He brushed her hair off her shoulder, exposing her profile. “You need training, and I’m the only one who can provide it. I promise, I won’t touch you again.”
His hand cupped the back of her neck and pressed her face toward his. “After this,” he whispered, bending over her, “I won’t touch you again.”
This kiss was tender and poignant. Their lips clung, their chests shuddered with the suppressed emotion. Ryc’s tongue gently dipped between Alexa’s lips and she opened to him, stretching the goodbye.
When it was over, he left quickly, locking the door behind him. Alexa watched him go, then let her sorrow and pain turn to anger. Mindful of her bare toes, she avoided kicking the iron post next to her. She had no such restraint when it came to smashing her breakfast dishes, however. She snatched the nearly empty plate and flicked her wrist to fling it toward the counter. The cheap china shattered satisfyingly against the Formica backsplash. The coffee mug was next, into the stainless sink because it was still full of coffee, and despite her anger she knew she was the one who’d have to clean it up. Her juice glass was last, against the wall behind the sink. Still raging, she grabbed the fork and spoon off the table and whipped them hard at the cupboard, where they bounced, unharmed, to the floor. The cupboard had a nice dent, at least.
Breathing hard, Alexa surveyed the damage. Ten seconds of venting and twenty minutes of cleanup, she thought. Not the best investment.
She’d barely begun to sweep up the broken glass and china when the hangar door rumbled open and Cyrgyn glided in.
“What happened?” he asked, nudging a chunk of porcelain with his claw. Alexa stomped down the stairs and snatched it up, tossing it into her garbage bag, then furiously sweeping the few fragments on the cement into her dustpan. She stomped equally furiously back up to the loft, slamming her hand on the button to close the door as she passed. “Don’t ask,” she finally bit out after finishing the job.
“Oooo-kay.”
Alexa looked at him and burst out laughing. The laugh pricked a hole in a huge, anguish-filled balloon in her chest and poured out until she was on the floor, hysterical with a mixture of laughter and tears.
Cyrgyn snaked his head under the rail and along the floor until his snout rested next to her knee. She felt his hot breath along her whole right side, sensed his concern, and tried to calm down. But she hadn’t cried since her mother died, and twenty-one years of suppressed emotion had finally found an outlet.
She hadn’t even realized she’d been suppressing it. Anger that she’d begun to fall for a man she couldn’t have, and guilt because he wasn’t the man she could, combined with her fear that she would fail, and worse, that Tarsuinn would destroy everything that was important to her. Once she’d vented those emotions, grief and anger and resentment welled up to take their place. Her mother’s death had made her responsible for her family and left her without the love and support most people took for granted.
She drew in a desperate breath, hating her descent into self-pity. Her mother hadn’t chosen to die, and her father and brother hadn’t forced her into the caretaker role. She’d chosen her career and its resultant solitude, preparing for a destiny she hadn’t been fully aware of.
Finally she stopped the flow and heaved a few dry, controlling sobs. When she opened her eyes the first thing she saw was a box of tissues next to Cyrgyn’s foreclaw.
“How…?”
“It was on the table. I managed to pull it off.”
Alexa snatched a handful and mopped her face. She could imagine the contortions he had to go through to get the box down without shredding it. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me. I suspect I am the cause of this display.”
“No.” She laid a hand on his neck. The supple warmth immediately eased the tightness that remained in her chest. “Never you.”
He let out a small snort. “Alexa, every bad thing in your life can be traced to me. I cannot rectify some of those things. I hope to help you resolve others.”
Alexa twisted to rest her head where her hand had been. “You can’t take the blame, Cyrgyn. You couldn’t prevent Tarsuinn’s actions.”
“Maybe I could have.”
His rumble was full of sorrow. It threatened to make Alexa cry again. She wondered if he was referring to her mother’s death, if he really could have prevented it. But she was too drained to confront him about it now. “Don’t go there. I know from experience it doesn’t help.” She blew her nose and tossed the wad of tissues toward the trash bag. “I guess once in a while we need to let things out or we’ll explode. But I can’t change what upset me. All I can do is go forward. So, let’s go forward.”
She stood and finished cleaning up the mess, then wrapped a bandage around her finger where she’d cut it without noticing. She turned back to the dragon, who still had his head on the loft floor.
“Where do we start?”
He looked up with rueful eyes. “How about with getting me out of here? I believe I am stuck.”
Alexa laughed and went to his rescue.
* * *
Tars was vulnerable.
He had traveled secretly around the city and surrounding countryside in search of his personal Kryptonite. He could not detect a single unit of water energy. Thermal en
ergy abounded, and he blew up three trees and boiled a duck pond dry in his frustration. But no water energy. He knew an entire county could not be free of the substance; therefore, he was vulnerable.
It was not a state he enjoyed.
If he couldn’t sense it, he couldn’t guard against it. He couldn’t create a shield or counterspell. He’d wasted weeks trying, while Alexa was no doubt developing her skills.
He’d rethought his assumption that she’d nurtured the talent all along. The look on her face when her attack had succeeded was as surprised as his own. With the benefit of cool contemplation, he realized she had not knowingly blocked his fireball on the roof. She was a child when it came to magic. He, of course, was a master mage.
A mage who was starting over. He growled.
“What’s wrong?”
Tars glanced up at Mark, who was working at a desk on the other side of the office. “Nothing that concerns you.”
Mark nodded and went back to his spreadsheets, but Tars saw the whiteness of his fingers on the pencil, the subtle tightening of the man’s jaw. He had to pull it together. Mark was likely to quit if Tars didn’t ease off, and he could not afford for that to happen. Besides his value as a trained, experienced assistant, he knew too much. Dragonsoul Enterprises would be exceedingly vulnerable should Mark defect to a competitor.
It doesn’t matter. The realization calmed him in a way all his attempts at relaxation and meditation had not.
“Have we had a buyout offer recently?” he asked Mark.
The man looked up in surprise. “Yes, actually. Two.”
Tars stood and began pacing. “I think I want to sell. I’ve grown weary of business and wish to move on to other things.”
Mark sat back in his chair and studied him. “Why? I mean, you could have sold two years ago when the market was up and made a fortune. The stock value is down, except for our security divisions, and you’ll take a beating if you sell out.”
“Fortunes do not drive me, Mark.” He moved to the window and searched the reddened skyline. From here, he could see planes taking off and landing at the airport where Alexa and Cyrgyn hid. He’d known of their presence for some time but had not devised a plan for penetrating their “sanctuary.”
A chime sounded, followed by the silent opening of his office door. The executive secretary entered and crossed to him.
“Mr. Suinn, sir. Your messages.” She’d been ordered to deliver them every hour and a half. He hadn’t been in the mood to take calls.
“Thank you, Margaret. You may set them on the desk.”
But Margaret didn’t change course. She stopped next to him and murmured, “Seven messages are from a woman named Victoria Chambers, Mr. Suinn. She was quite insistent.”
“Very well.” He took the slips and waited until she left.
“Is she what drives you?” Mark asked.
Tars sorted through the messages. “She probably should be.” In his saner moments he acknowledged the value of family in this life. Those moments were too fleeting.
“Is it Alexa Ranger, then?”
“Alexa,” he whispered, gazing in her direction once more. His chest burned with longing, his body craved hers. He knew he was much too far gone to turn back.
He whirled and strode to Mark’s desk, dropping the messages on his spreadsheets. “Sell the company and set up a trust for Victoria Chambers and her fiancé, Peter Ranger. Hold some in reserve for their children. Take ten percent as a commission. I’m going to Scotland.”
“Wait!” Mark leaped to his feet. “I have questions—”
Tars paused with his hand on the door. “I don’t care how it is done. Break it up, sell it whole—do whatever you feel is best. I trust you.”
“But I’ll need you for paperwork.”
“I can be reached in Scotland. You have my digital number.” He left, not intending to ever go back.
His sham life was over. He would focus the rest of his energy on obtaining Alexa as his wife. Somehow.
* * *
Alexa didn’t see Ryc for weeks after the kiss. She worked with Cyrgyn, practicing what she considered her “mundane” magic and trying to develop her command of water energy into something powerful enough to counter Tarsuinn.
“Remember, he has had hundreds of years to grow his strength,” Cyrgyn told her one day on the shore of a lake. Alexa didn’t need a body of water to sense the energy, but it did tend to collect where water did. Using the energy dissipated it, and it took time to coalesce, so she liked going where an abundance allowed her to practice for long periods of time.
She lifted her hand, focused on a small coil ten yards away, and drew it to her. It swirled around her hand, invisible to Cyrgyn but a changing sphere of blue and white she could clearly “see.” She watched it swirl faster and harder, then cast it at a small fire burning in a camping pit. There was a hissing burst as the fire sparked and sizzled, then went out all at once.
Alexa grunted and sat on a log next to the dragon. “He may have memory and practice on his side, but this is new to him, too.” She glowered at the steaming fire pit, which contained little evidence of the waterball she’d thrown. “Unfortunately, I can’t develop a good attack without a target.”
“And we can be certain he is developing his defenses, as well.”
She rested her elbows on her knees and leaned forward until her ponytail fell over the top of her head and brushed the ground. “I’m so tired of this, Cyrgyn. It’s getting us nowhere.” She tossed her head back. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
She leaped onto his back and gripped the spine at the base of his neck. “Anywhere. Away. Hawaii.”
“Very well.”
He launched, and Alexa felt her tension fade immediately. There was something about the freedom of the open sky, the lack of confinement to an extent she’d never felt, even with skydiving. Even though she was at the dragon’s mercy, out of control, she felt less than helpless.
They couldn’t fly to Hawaii, of course, but Cyrgyn managed to find a secluded beach on the coast of one of the Great Lakes—she hadn’t been paying enough attention to know which one. They’d begun flying at twilight, and landed on the beach in full dark, but with a brilliant moon. Alexa walked along the curve of the sand, digging her toes in and relishing the water that teased her feet.
She turned back and watched Cyrgyn lumbering behind her.
“Can you swim?”
He tilted his head one way, then looked at the vast lake. Tilted his head the other, and looked at her again. “I have no idea.”
Alexa laughed, something she’d done infrequently these last few weeks. “Let’s try it.” She grabbed the hem of her shirt and began to pull it off. Cyrgyn’s gasp of horror made her pause.
“Don’t be a prude,” she admonished him. His golden eyes glowed with censure and she remembered his plea when she’d begun undressing in the hangar that day. She relented. “Close your eyes, then. I’ll tell you when I’m in the water.”
His rumble of frustration sounded very much like that of an aroused male denied his prize, but he closed his eyes. Alexa eagerly shucked her clothes and tossed them high onto the sand to keep them dry. As soon as she waded deep enough into the water, she ducked to her shoulders and turned back.
“Okay, I’m in.”
Cyrgyn opened one eye, then the other. She watched while he dipped a toe into the water. The sheer absurdity of the scene made her laugh again.
“Come on!” she called.
“It’s cold,” he replied, putting his entire paw in, then withdrawing and shaking it.
Alexa moved back so she had enough depth to swim. “Well, it is a Great Lake. We’re pretty far north. But the daily temperature’s been high enough that this is fairly warm.”
“Relatively speaking, I suppose?” Cyrgyn shuddered, looking like a horse trying to shake off a fly. He took a deep breath, reared back, and plunged in.
His roar echoed off the dunes around them. “By the Gods, A
lexa! You hate me so, that you would subject me to such torture?”
Alexa laughed again, but Cyrgyn obviously couldn’t take it and heaved himself back onto the beach.
“I apologize. I may have fire in my belly, but I am still of the reptile family. The cold is unbearable.” His teeth seemed to chatter. “I must dry off. I will return.”
She watched him leap into the air, then disappear as he cloaked. “It’s probably colder up there,” she muttered, feeling abandoned. Still, the water felt good to her, as she’d spent hours in ninety-five degree weather trying to play warrior with the magical equivalent of water balloons. She swam out into the lake, then turned onto her back and floated to shore.
The moon was nearly full, the sky completely clear. Alexa examined the stars, and how they got brighter the further they were from the moon. One in particular caught her attention. It seemed to shine more fiercely than the others. She knew its red tint was a function of the atmosphere, but it seemed to denote passion and fortitude. It was surrounded by other stars, yet stood remote in the vast expanse of space. She felt like that. Like the rest of the world was a crowd around her, but so far away as to be insignificant to her life.
She flipped over and stroked toward shore, watching the beach and the surrounding woods. Cyrgyn hadn’t returned. She knew he wouldn’t leave her here intentionally, but how long did it really take to dry off? He could have had an accident—flying into a plane, or a cloud-enshrouded mountain, or even crashing to earth because the water affected his aerodynamics.
She scanned the area one more time. Nothing moved. No sign of Cyrgyn, or any other living creature. She felt utterly alone.
Swallowing the fear that she’d be that way forever, she stood and started wading back to the beach.
Chapter Fifteen
Ryc stood in the shadows between dunes and watched Alexa swim closer to shore. He hadn’t been able to stay away once Cyrgyn had flown off. It had been weeks since he’d seen Alexa, weeks when he knew she’d been training and preparing for the battle sure to come. He’d forced himself not to go to her, not to make excuses like his ability to help her train. She’d be fine with Cyrgyn. She needed to be with Cyrgyn.
Soul of the Dragon Page 16
