by Amelia Jade
Irene wasn’t so simply swayed though.
“Find love, Zander,” she said with a smile. “You don’t have to go searching for it, but stop trying to avoid it, or act like it doesn’t exist. If you leave yourself open to the possibility of it, then it will find you. I promise.”
She looked like she was going to say more, but a coughing fit overcame her, and for the first time, Zander saw how truly close to the end she was. Her entire body shook, and much of the strength remaining in her faded with the coughs, leaving her slumped over in the chair. Her eyes looked up at him wearily as he hovered over her, holding the mug of warm tea that she kept at her side up to her mouth so she could sip at it.
“Thank you,” she said weakly.
“You’re welcome mother,” he said with a sad smile.
She doesn’t have months. Weeks, if not days. I can’t let her go like this. She may have been a little more distant than some parents, but she was always there if I needed her.
***
As Zander closed the door after putting her to bed and moved to the front of the house, he made a vow to himself.
His mother wasn’t going to pass from this world without seeing him with a mate. He wanted her to pass happy, no matter what was actually going on. The family name and power and fortune be damned. It was no longer about that, but it was instead about Irene Pierce, and the fact that she deserved to die happy, knowing her son was happy.
If he had to hurt one human’s feelings to achieve that, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
Chapter Six
Riss
Two days passed before she saw him again.
It was more than she’d expected after the way he took off in the middle of the night, but despite that and the lack of communication since, Riss couldn’t hide the elation when a knock came at her door.
It was Saturday, and she was off work, a rarity. Sunday was her normal day off, but for whatever reason, she hadn’t been scheduled to work at all this weekend. With the money she’d earned from her commissions on Zander’s suits, Riss didn’t have to worry about the lost hours either. It was a singularly refreshing feeling, one that she’d had little experience with before.
Putting the scrub pad and spray down, she moved to the sink and quickly washed her hands as the person knocked at the door once more.
“Coming!” she called, unsure if they could hear her.
They. No, you know who it is. You don’t get other visitors. It has to be him. Hopefully he has an explanation for what the hell the other night was all about.
She paused just short of the door, tugging on her top and fixing her jeans, hoping that she looked at least somewhat presentable. Her hair was thrown up in a messy bun and she was lacking makeup entirely, but such were the perks of a day off. Riss wasn’t showing off for anyone today, and if Zander didn’t like it, too bad.
Opening the door, the height of the person made it immediately clear who it was.
“Zander,” she said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed as she eyed him
The jeans and black T-shirt were an easy look, and one that he, like everything else it seemed, managed to pull off to perfection. The cuffs on the arms were pulled tight around his biceps, which seemed to be extra big today. In fact, as she looked at him, all of his muscles seemed to be practically quivering.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Just fine, why?” he asked, standing up straight and looking behind him.
“You just look…extra intimidating today,” she said, not sure how else to phrase it.
“I just flew a long way to get here,” he said. “So perhaps that has something to do with it.”
“Right,” she said, nodding slowly. “You can fly. You know, despite everything, I’d actually forgotten about that little fact. I knew you were a dragon, but I’ve not seen you be one.”
The big shifter reached up and brushed his hair back out of the way. “Well, rest assured, I most definitely am one of those flying dragon sorts,” he said with a smile.
“So much so that you had to fly away from me,” she replied without matching humor.
Zander winced in apology. “Sorry,” he said. “I panicked, if you must know.”
The admission rocked Riss back on her heels. “You are part human under all that after all,” she said in surprise.
“I hadn’t meant to kiss you,” he continued, ignoring her quip. “So when I did, I realized that you might think I was about to try something more, which I wasn’t going to do without your permission. And then my brain went to shit and so I took off,” he said sheepishly. “Not my finest hour.”
Riss thought for several moments.
“No,” she said at last, “I suppose it wasn’t.”
Then she turned and went back inside.
Zander followed her, closing the door she’d left open on purpose behind him.
“It smells weird in here.”
“You better be referring to the fact that I’ve been using cleaners all day, and not something about the way I smell,” she said pointedly.
“No, it’s the cleaners,” he agreed. “It’s very strong. You should have the windows open, get some fresh air in here.”
“The windows are open.”
“Well that’s not acceptable then,” he proclaimed. “You need to go outside and allow your system to breathe properly.”
“I was just outside, when I decided to let you in after not seeing or hearing from you for forty-eight hours.”
“I’m going to be paying for that for a while, aren’t I?” he said with an exaggerated sigh.
“There’s a fair chance of it, yes.”
“Well then, let us be on our way, so that I can begin to serve in purgatory,” he joked, sending a wink her way that, despite her lingering frustration at his absence, still managed to stir up the blood in her system.
I really dislike how easy it is for him to do that. It’s like I trust him on some level I’m not even capable of understanding! It makes no sense, dammit.
To a human, at least. Perhaps to a shifter this was all the norm. Her human brain was trying desperately to understand how someone she had just met could so easily ingrain himself into her life, in a way that he managed to actually leave a void, despite only having seen him outside of work once.
“Where are we going?” Riss heard herself ask, and wanted to slap herself for caving so easily. She was supposed to be pissed at him for the kiss and run, not eagerly agreeing to go wherever he wanted after two days of radio silence.
And yet his eyes smiled at her with a happiness that made her heart do a double beat. Then she noticed something different about him as her eyes continued to scour his heat-inducing body.
“You haven’t shaved,” she said before she could stop herself.
“No, I thought I’d try out the short stubble look,” he said, raising a hand to stroke the short growth on his face. “What do you think?”
“Hmm,” she replied. Then again her body responded, and she lifted her fingers to his cheek, stroking the surprisingly soft fuzz with her own hand.
Zander’s hand caught hers and held it there as she made to remove it, and their eyes locked once more, metallic-brown trying to pierce gray fog.
“I like when you touch me,” he rumbled, without breaking eye contact.
Riss continued to stare at him for another moment, and then let a sly smile tug her cheeks upward, knowing how it dimpled her face. “Shouldn’t have cut and run the other night then,” she teased with a wink, pulling her hand back.
Anger flashed through those eyes momentarily, but it wasn’t directed outward, she realized after a split second. It was directed internally, self-loathing at his own actions. Not because he had perhaps missed out on having sex, but because he’d cut and run on her without explanation, and her barbs, although disguised as jokes, were Riss’s way of dealing with the hurt of that.
“I will make that up to you. Hopefully today
will be a start.”
She frowned. “I sense a ‘but’ coming here.”
He grinned. “But I still can’t tell you where we’re going. I will promise you that it will be worth the not knowing.”
Riss didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I sure hope so. I’m trying,” he said.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said with a shake of her head. “Wait here, I need to get ready.”
***
He was still there when she exited the shower ten minutes later, and began going through her wardrobe.
“What do I need to wear?” she called down the hallway to where he was waiting in the front hall. “Is a dress good?”
There was what sounded suspiciously like a cough designed to cover up laughter, and then, “No, no you will want pants today. Comfortable ones. Long-sleeved shirt would probably be a good choice too.”
Riss frowned at the voice. She didn’t think the combo would look all that great on her, but if that was what he recommended, she would go with it. “Is it going to be warm or cold?” she asked.
“Probably not cold, but not super hot either,” came the cryptic reply.
“You aren’t being much help,” she retorted.
“I know.”
Grrr. I hate when he does that. He knows I want more information, and he’s purposefully rubbing it in that he knows and I don’t. If he weren’t so damn attractive, and otherwise charming, and polite, and, and... Dammit. I’m falling for this guy.
The realization wasn’t the bombshell it might have been. Riss suspected parts of her had already known, or at least though that her feelings were stronger than she was allowing herself to feel. He irritated her, of that there was no doubt. But that didn’t seem to matter just then.
Clothes picked out, she strode from her room, pulling her hair up into a ponytail so that it stayed off her neck while it did its last bit of drying.
Zander ran an appraising eye up and down her body, and she felt a thrill run through her at the way he inhaled, his pupils dilating as he checked her out. It wasn’t often that she felt attractive. But just then, knowing that she was the object of attraction for a man as gorgeous as Zander was…empowering, to say the least. She subtly tugged her top a little lower, giving him a bit better view down her shirt.
Could you be any more obvious? You aren’t an all-you-can-eat buffet woman! Make him work for it at least.
Riss ignored her inner voice’s commentary, enjoying the way Zander’s eyes flared open even a little more. He did a credible effort of not looking, but he was, in the end, still male.
He looked.
Twice.
“Shall we?” he asked, gesturing to the door, realizing he’d been busted and trying to change the subject.
“Lead on,” she replied, and they exited the house.
It was a warmer day than the past few had been, and the sun had broken through the clouds. The combination of both of those served to make her a little warmer than she might have preferred.
The sunlight reflected off Zander’s tan skin and drew out the burnished gold in his hair. She immediately snuggled up to his side, all reservations gone as his bulk pressed up against her. They walked along the red- and orange-cobblestoned roads on a meandering path that she knew was taking them toward the outskirts of town, but was definitely not the fastest or most direct route.
Zander was stalling.
“Why are you delaying things?” she asked as the last of the buildings stopped, giving way to fields beyond, where crops were grown and tended by some of the more tenacious shifters in Cadia.
“I’m not delaying,” he replied happily.
“We could have gotten here much faster though,” she stated, puzzled.
“Yes. But then I wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time with you like this,” he said, pulling her tight to his side.
“Are we not going to do that anymore?” Riss was confused.
Zander’s joyful smile stretched wider. “Not…quite.”
“Well, I officially have no idea what you mean.”
“Here,” Zander said, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her up onto the concrete wall that surrounded the last property on their right. He waited till she was seated on it, and then he did something she did not expect.
Zander, forgoing the opening in the wall fifty feet back down the road, simply took a step back, tossed her a wink, and then with one stride jumped clear over the wall, landing easily on the other side.
“Well that’s a neat party trick,” she snorted, trying to act far less impressed than she was. “I wish I knew how to do it.”
“Dragon stuff,” he said with fake crypticness.
“You just wanted me up here so that you could show off?” she asked, spinning around to the other side of the flat-topped wall, to see Zander standing in the middle of a circle of stones.
She made to get down and join him, but an upraised hand stopped her.
“What?”
“It, uh, it would be better if you stayed there,” he said.
It took Riss a moment longer to realize why he was standing in the stones. She knew what the circles were for, but hadn’t attached that meaning to Zander just yet.
“Oh, right. Okay.”
It wasn’t the first time Riss had seen a dragon change. They weren’t the most populous of the shifter races, but there were more than enough of them in Cadia for her to have seen numerous changes.
That being said, she’d never seen a metallic dragon change before. They were, to her limited knowledge, the rarest of dragons.
So she was fascinated as he brought his arms to his face, pressing his forearms together and closing his eyes. That was different than most dragons, who either stood with their arms at their sides or took a knee.
The air around him began to shimmer, and she saw the little bits of detritus that had fallen onto the circle become swept up into the whirling, howling windstorm that engulfed Zander in a nearly perfect sphere. The wind moved faster and faster, until it twisted the very air to the point it went from transparent, to translucent, and then finally opaque, obscuring and blurring beyond the point of recognition, anything on the inside.
Then the shrieking tornado began to tug at her as it grew and swelled in size, occupying near half of the circle, and continuing to increase its radius. Just when she thought it was going to threaten to suck her in, it swirled down to the ground and blasted outward in a dissipating wave.
What it left behind, however, was far more impressive than the actual change itself. Riss stared in awe at the magnificent creature that was eyeing her with its golden-yellow orbs, oval pupils jerking back and forth as he looked at her.
Warm air washed over her as the huge brass dragon exhaled from its long snout. Double eyelids blinked, the nictitating membranes moving in opposite directions of each other, one set vertical the other horizontal.
“So this is what you meant by not being able to stand side by side,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied, his voice slightly more baritone now, but still a rumble like tires on gravel.
The dragon head came forward until Riss could reach out and touch it. She did, her hand tentatively making contact with the leathery skin of his snout, which was devoid of scales.
It was warm and tough, just as it looked. Teeth longer than her fingers protruded in several spots, and she saw up close and personal why the dragons were undisputedly the most powerful shifters on the planet.
“So what now?” she asked, regaining some of her confidence, enough to hop down from the wall and approach the massive central body of the dragon. At least twenty-five feet long, she knew he was smaller than some of the blue and white dragons that came and went, or even the larger reds that were most frequently seen. But he was still the biggest creature she had ever seen.
Her fingers knocked against one of his scales, the brass covering feeling like a steel plate under her touch. It was some serious prote
ction from harm, that was for sure.
A scraping on the stone beneath her drew her attention to the nearly foot-long talons that sprouted from his paws.
Not much protection against a set of those, though.
Dragon claws, she knew, were one of the few things that could rip through another dragon’s scales. A dragon’s biggest threat was another dragon.
But he’s not just any dragon, she thought, eyeing the massive wing membranes, colored a much darker goldish tint than his body. Zander was a Guardian, which meant he was far above his fellow untrained dragons in abilities and strength.
“Now,” he said in response to her question. “We go for a ride.”
Riss looked up at him in shock.
***
Zander
“I’m sorry, what?” she said.
“We’re going for a ride,” he repeated, trying not to laugh at the look on her face.
It had started as shock, morphed quickly to excitement, and was now flickering back and forth from that to sheer terror.
“Ahhh,” Riss said, unsure.
“Come on, climb on,” he said, stretching his wing out and putting it on the ground, so that she could easily climb up it onto his back.
“There’s nowhere for me to, you know,” she said, looking at his body and then back to his eyes.
“Sit?” he supplied.
“Yeah. On a horse there’s a saddle, right? So that’s where I would sit. But, um, on you, how would I?”
“You climb up my wing, to start,” he coached, pushing it closer to her.
“It will support me?”
Now he did laugh.
“Without issue. Trust me,” he said. “You are not the first person to climb aboard.”
He immediately regretted saying that.
“Invited lots of women to ride on your back, have you, mister?” Riss asked, her tone slightly hurt, and slightly mocking at the same time.
“That was not the way I meant it,” he said. “And you know it.”
Riss frowned. “I know, I know. But still.”
“Riss, I am over two centuries old. I make no apologies for having lived them. What you need to know, and all that you need to know, is that right now, I’m living it with you.”
