Dancer Dragon: Bodyguard Shifters #6

by Chant, Zoe

  Rural farm and ranch country gave way, eventually, to small towns and then suburbs, glimpsed through the clouds. Heikon's wings were feeling the strain now, but in a pleasant way, the good ache of a satisfying workout. It had been a while since he'd been on a long flight.

  We should hunt, his dragon said, stirring lazily in his mind. It had been content for some time now, completely present within its own skin, thinking of nothing but the stretch of too-long-unused muscles, the rush of the wind and the pleasantly cool flow of occasional bursts of rain over his scales.

  Not now. We seek our mate.

  We have no mate. The dragon's reply was not upset so much as merely confused.

  Rather than start that argument all over again, Heikon folded his wings and dived into the clouds. He was flying over the city now, so he had to be careful; there was more air traffic up here, and also a much greater chance of being spotted when he dipped low in the clouds to get his bearings. On the bright side, city people didn't look up that much, and when they did, they were more likely to think, "Hmm, big jet" rather than "Dragon!"

  He had known of Esme's residence in the city for some time now, but had never been there. He approached it by flying low over the docks and then weaving his way through a mostly-deserted warehouse district. When the lights of small businesses began to appear below him, gleaming through the rainy dusk, he touched down in a dark spot between a fence and a malfunctioning street light, and shifted. Four hundred years gave him a lot of practice at doing it quickly and stealthily; he folded his wings and was human by the time his now-shod feet lightly touched the ground. Anyone watching would have seen little more than shadows and perhaps a flash of blue scales.

  He stretched his arms to ease the ache of rearranged muscles, and adjusted his jacket, smoothed his hair to the side. His hand came away damp. Right ... it was raining here, a soft, steady drizzle.

  It occurred to him that he should probably have brought an umbrella.

  But there were human stores around. Useful. He stopped into three stores asking for umbrellas, and finally found a store that had just one left, which he bought. He didn't realize until he'd stepped out onto the street and opened it that it was covered in bright green frogs.

  Heikon sighed. Perhaps it was for the best? Esme liked green, after all. He could tell her that it was in her honor.

  He should have worn the emerald jacket. Too late now.

  The umbrella was ever so slightly too small for a man his size, and occasionally dripped cold rainwater down his collar. It was a mystery for the ages, Heikon thought as he gloomily made his way down the street, that rain felt so very nice on his dragon's scales, and so unpleasant when it was making his human clothes cling to his skin.

  We could be a dragon again, his dragon suggested hopefully.

  Not here we can't.

  His dragon, which had absolutely no comprehension of cars, people, or witnesses, subsided with sulky ill grace.

  He took a wrong turn and had to ask directions from a woman who was just closing an art gallery, but she knew exactly who he meant when he mentioned Esme, and a few minutes later he was standing across the street from a building that looked exactly like what it was: a converted warehouse. It was a big square block of a building, dominating its side of the street. Heikon's soul, soothed by meadows and gardens, shrank from the unnatural squareness and ugliness of it. In his mountain, everything was smooth curves and natural stone. Surely she couldn't enjoy living in a place like that, shut away from the wild world in a manner that was completely unnatural for dragons.

  She must have shut herself up and walled away the world in her grief, Heikon mused. The square prison-like shape of the building reflected the bleakness in her soul.

  How could he have stayed away from her for so many years, leaving her to this?

  Are we going to be here long? his dragon asked. I'm bored. I thought we were flying.

  We're here on a very important mission.

  Does it involve fat sheep?

  He decided not to dignify that with a response, and crossed the street.

  The building looked less bleak up close ... somewhat, at least. Rather than painting over the brick, it had been finished in a way that made the brick look sharp and new, with crisp trim. There were large windows on the top floor, and also the ground floor, looking out on the street. Some of them showed what appeared to be empty conference rooms, but several were lit up with warm lamplight within. Floor-to-ceiling vertical blinds concealed most of what was going on inside, but when he looked in, he realized that all the lamplit windows belonged to the same large interior space, a sort of ballroom or dance hall.

  And there were dancers.

  He spotted Esme immediately, of course. She was the only one not paired with a partner, but she still moved in rhythm to the music he couldn't hear from outside. She waltzed alone, gracefully and silently dancing from one person to the next. She did not intrude, merely touched a shoulder here, an arm there, correcting her dancers with small brushes of her hands.

  She wore a green dress with a knee-length skirt that flared around her as she moved. Her vivid red hair was piled on her head, held up with pins that looked like they were barely containing the living mass of it, as if pulling out a single pin could send it all tumbling over her shoulders. How well he remembered the feeling of it spilling through his hands; twenty years was but a moment. He could have touched her yesterday, so well did his hands remember the feeling of her hair, the supple smoothness of her skin ...

  Bored, his dragon announced.

  Shut up!

  He had forgotten how Esme dominated a room. As she gracefully waltzed from one dancer to another, there was no way that the eye could not be drawn to her. Every line of her body was grace and beauty ... and joy. When she turned so that he could glimpse her face, her eyes were half closed and she appeared to be lost in the music, lips parted and sweet bliss on her face.

  He'd never seen a woman who looked less bleak and miserable in his life.

  She puts on a brave face, he thought, and his heart broke with love for her strength and resilience.

  We could be hunting right now, you know, his dragon suggested.

  Quiet, reptile, that's our mate in there.

  No it's not, his dragon reported after a quick look.

  His dragon might not know her, with the mate bond broken between them. But he would. He would know her in darkness or sunshine, would know her as a dragon or a human. He would know her dancing alone, or in a crowded room, or ...

  Er. Or staring through the window, as she was now doing, with a decidedly unfriendly look on her face.

  Esme

  Tonight Esme had most of her regulars for the evening seniors' ballroom dance class. Miriam, perched birdlike in her wheelchair, never missed a class. Albert and Greta had turned up this time, married for 55 years and so completely lost in each other, even in their late 70s, that she had her hands full trying to get them to dance with anyone else. The one and only unattached man in the class—George, a rather shy 80-something who wore his high-waisted pants with suspenders—had been instantly claimed as a dance partner by one of the single women, Lupe. This just left Judy, hair spiked up in a bristling gray bush and wearing jeans rather than a skirt as most of the female seniors preferred. As usual, she looked a little awkward on the dance floor, like she felt that she didn't quite fit; at 69, she was the youngest person in the seniors class, and preferred to dance the male parts.

  "Dance with me, dear?" Miriam asked, her wrinkled face creased with smiles, holding out her hands.

  Judy smiled and took her hands gently. "I'd love to dance with you."

  When Miriam had joined the class, Esme had looked up videos on Youtube of how to dance with people in wheelchairs. By now she had taught this to most of her regulars, with Miriam as their partner, and so Judy knew just what to do; she led in the dance, gently pulling Miriam around through the steps.

  Esme started out with a Strauss waltz, and moved briskl
y around her students, for the most part letting them dance on their own; none of her beginning students were here tonight, and this bunch came here mainly for the dance practice and camaraderie. Greta had brought a coffee cake, and a stack of pretty little plates, to go with the coffee Esme always laid out. (Expensive French roast, of course; no cheap bargain-basement coffee for her students.) By now the students knew each other, and enjoyed renewing their acquaintance.

  Esme danced in between the couples, moving with the music, and feeling, all the while, the cold lack of a partner to dance with. It wouldn't have mattered if she cut in and danced with someone, with Miriam or Judy or even George—what she was missing was her partner, the one who would have completed her. It was all the more painful for having thought she had found that, and then lost it.

  How could two people seem to fit so perfectly, only for it all to go wrong?

  And then she opened her eyes, having let them drift shut as she flowed along with the music, and found herself looking toward the window, out into the darkened street—at Heikon.

  Esme stopped moving, freezing in place in the middle of the dance floor. He was standing there looking at her through the window, holding a ludicrous plastic umbrella with cartoon frogs on it, which he had allowed to slip down to his shoulder; his hair was getting wet.

  As she continued to stare, he turned away—and a part of her wanted to shout at him to stop, to stay ... until she realized that he was not leaving, but rather, heading for the door.

  Oh no!

  She dashed toward the door in a flurry of clicking heels, but he had already opened it before she could get there and slam the lock home. He stepped inside, shaking off the umbrella, and Esme clattered to a stop.

  "Hi," he said, a bit sheepishly, and smiled at her.

  The rain humanized him, made him seem less like a regal dragonlord and more like a middle-aged man who had been caught out in a cloudburst. The shoulders of his ludicrous brick-red dinner jacket were dark with water—and honestly, what did he think he was dressing up for, a mobster's wedding? The rain darkened his salt-and-pepper hair, glistened on his smooth bronze skin. She wouldn't mind licking it off—

  Why are we wasting time with a man who broke our heart? her dragon complained. There is music! Dancing!

  Too right. Esme firmly got herself under control and folded her arms. She was not affected in the slightest by the way he was looking at her, the smile that still melted her, the dark eyes full of tentative hope.

  Behind her, she was conscious of the dancers clattering and in one case rolling to a stop as they became aware that something was going on.

  "As you can see, I'm in the middle of a class," she said. "Say what you came to say and leave."

  His smile faltered. "Yes, a class," he said. "Right. You ... teach classes?"

  So little he knew about her ... or her about him. Perhaps it was never meant to last no matter what.

  "Yes," she said sharply, "and I need to get back to—"

  "Oh, Esme dear, who is this handsome man?" Miriam's cracked voice said, and Esme could have sunk through the floor. "Do we have another male student?"

  Esme could not quite understand how it happened, but her students surrounded Heikon and swept him into the room, showing him where to leave his umbrella, giving him a towel. They had always been friendly with new people; normally she encouraged it. Now she was so caught off guard that she failed to put a stop to it until it was too late.

  "There's coffee cake!" Greta exclaimed. "Have some. It's my mother's recipe."

  "And the coffee is excellent," Lupe put in.

  "Eat up, dear, you look like you need it," Miriam quavered.

  "A ... student," Heikon said, standing with a plate of coffee cake in one hand, a plastic fork in the other, and looking vaguely boggled and confused in a way that was most certainly not adorable. "Can I ... er ... sign up for your class?"

  "Oh, that would be wonderful!" Greta cried, clapping her hands. "There are never enough dancers to take the male parts; my Albert prefers to dance with me, of course, and other than that we just have George ... oh, and there's Judy—no offense, Judy—"

  "None taken," Judy sighed.

  How, Esme thought in dismay. How did this happen?! And now she had no idea how to back out gracefully in front of the students. She looked into Heikon's face and saw all of a sudden, in her mind's eye, how deeply she could hurt him in return; she could fly at him like the dragon that she was, rending and tearing with words, cutting him to the bone just as he had cut her; she could tell everyone exactly what he'd done, that he'd broken her heart, abandoned her. She could tear him down so completely that her students would want nothing to do with him!

  And then she saw from the mildly quizzical look that he cast at the students that he wouldn't care. Oh, he would care about the words she said to him ... probably. Maybe. But it didn't matter to him if she did it in front of the students or not. He was a typical dragon; humans as individuals were meaningless to him, useful only in what they could do for him.

  But what if I could make you care? she thought, looking at him with her head tilted to the side. What if I could make you see them as I see them? Show you how to like them? And then reveal to them who you really are and pull the rug out from under your feet!

  She was vaguely aware on some level that this was a ridiculously convoluted revenge plan, but her dragon was highly approving. Does it mean that we get to dance and also bite him?

  Yes! Esme thought back, and she said, "Can you dance at all?"

  "Not well," Heikon said, and the tentative smile grew bolder. "That's why I need you to teach me."

  Oh, that smile. Not his apology smile, but his infuriating and even more panty-melting smile of absolute confidence, the smile that said he thought he was winning.

  We'll just see about that.

  "Yes," she said, smiling back at him, showing some teeth. "Of course. In fact, why don't we get back to it."

  The record had stopped playing. She went and switched to another, taking her time putting it on, asking herself the entire time what on earth she thought she was doing.

  It's only one class, she thought. I can make him leave anytime I want.

  The sweet strains of music filled the dance hall. Esme closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying it, and then she turned back ... to find that the couples had already paired up again, leaving Heikon and herself the only ones unpaired.

  Oops.

  She looked around hastily, wondering if she could break up any of the dancing pairs. Albert and Greta were .... well ... no. Miriam was always happy to dance with anyone who wanted to, but she and Judy seemed to be having fun tonight, and Esme felt bad about breaking them up; it was always so hard to get Judy involved in the class activities. And Miriam was a challenging partner because of the wheelchair.

  Esme heaved a deep sigh and threw herself on that grenade for the sake of her class.

  "Let's get this over with," she snapped, and held out a hand to Heikon.

  "And a more charming invitation I couldn't imagine," he said, taking her hand.

  She was unprepared for her own reaction to the feeling of his skin on hers. His fingers were slightly callused, warm and strong. Her hand fit into his as if it was meant to be there.

  With a tentativeness that she didn't expect from him, he carefully settled his other hand at the small of her back. It rested there very lightly, hardly even touching the silky fabric of her dress, as if he was nervous to hold her too closely for fear that he might cause her to slip away.

  She was shocked to feel a slight tremor in the fingers holding her own, as if he was as uncertain about this—as nervous—as she was.

  Almost against her will, Esme looked up at his face. She hadn't been this close to him in twenty years, and she was hyper-aware of his body so near to hers; it seemed as if she could feel the warmth of his entire body, even though nothing touched her but his hands.

  And he was looking down at her with the full depth of twenty years'
longing in his eyes.

  Her whole body seemed to tingle. She was frozen, hardly hearing the music.

  This wasn't going to work at all.

  She jerked her hand out of his, and glided out of his grasp, taking a few steps back until she regained some distance and, with it, her composure. She was gasping as if she'd just run a mile. Her heart raced.

  She couldn't do this. She couldn't spin around the room on this man's arm and pretend to feel nothing. Her resistance would crumble, she knew it would.

  How could he still have this much of an effect on her? The mate bond was broken! They were nothing to each other now. She should be able to touch him, to look into his eyes, and feel nothing.

  "I think we've had enough waltzing for now," she said in a voice pitched to carry across the room. "Why don't we switch to swing dancing for awhile?"

  There. That should be good: a nice, active, and most importantly unpartnered dance. Or at least one that did not require dancing very closely in intimate proximity with anyone. She very nearly fled the room to go get some jazz records.

  Once the lively strains filled the ballroom, things relaxed a bit. Soon the entire class were dancing vigorously—including Heikon. He clearly had absolutely no idea what he was doing, but the other ladies in the class were eager to show him.

  Hot, vicious jealousy washed over Esme, shocking her.

  What's the matter with me? With shaking hands, she fussed with the coffee things, turning her back on her gaily dancing students. He is nothing to me. What do I care if he dances with other women? Human women, at that!

  But she looked over her shoulder and saw a laughing Lupe correcting his dance steps, and for an instant she was seized with an overwhelming urge to shift into a dragon and scare that woman away from her m—

  He's not our mate!

  I know!

  The evening passed in a haze of jealousy and longing. For the first time, Esme was deeply glad when they reached the end of the class period and everyone began to break up and drift out. Esme began packing up the coffee things. Heikon lingered.