by Zoe Chant
“Can you do that now?”
“Is ... that a request?”
“Maybe! I've never seen a dragon before!” There was a slightly tinny sound to her own voice that told Tara that she was probably on some kind of hysterical edge, but to hell with it. If she was going to have an actual fit of hysterics, she might as well see a dragon while she was at it.
“Um. No. I would destroy the car.”
“Oh.”
They drove in silence for a moment, and then, almost casually, Reese spoke.
“So. Do me a favor and take a deep breath. Don't hold it, but just draw a good amount of air into your lungs, and let it out slowly and steadily. Can you do that for me?”
Confused, Tara did as he said, and he nodded.
“Okay, follow along with me. Breathe with me.”
She might have protested, but it was helping. She let her breath fall into a rhythm with Reese', and slowly, inch by inch, she felt herself calm down. It reminded her that no matter how crazy things got, no matter how insane things were likely going to get, she could still breathe. She at least had this, and the next breath, and the one after that.
This was the first time, however, that she realized she wasn't breathing alone. Breathing with Reese seemed to warm her up. She found herself imagining his breath curling around her like a puff of smoke and lending her some of his strength.
The miles passed under the wheels of his car — nice ride, she thought absently — and she sighed, leaning back in the leather seat.
“I can't go back to my apartment, can I?” she asked.
“No. I'm sorry.”
“All right. Then let me off at the next gas station. I can catch a ride from there.”
Reese made a noise that sounded half-outraged and half-disbelieving.
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Truckers, people passing through. Thanks for the rescue, but I'm not going to go hunting cultists with you or whatever superhero stuff it is you do, Mr. Dragon.”
“It's Reese. And I am not dropping you off at a damn gas station. That would be awful.”
“I've got my ID, my cards, some cash, and some clam chowder on me. I've built a life up from less.”
“That's not a good thing!” Reese exclaimed, and she scowled at him.
“Are you under the impression that I think it is? It's ... it's just the way it is. And it's not like I'm swimming in offers otherwise.”
“How about if I make you one?”
She blinked. Apparently Reese believed in moving fast.
“Okay,” she said, because at this point, why the heck not. “What's your pitch?”
“All right. Would you like to come stay with me? I can promise you a much safer place to spend the night than anything you are going to find at a Wyoming truck stop, I'll spring for dinner, and tomorrow, I'll see about getting you a proper ride. No strings attached on any of that. How does that sound?”
Tara hesitated, because in her experience, all of this was too good to be true. Men didn't come out of the dark to rescue her and then offer to put her up without expecting something in return. They usually didn't also breathe fire, so maybe tonight was going to be full of firsts.
“You don't even know my name,” she hedged.
“Tell me your name.”
For some reason, she didn't lie.
“Tara Walsh.”
“Pleased to meet you, Tara,” he said. “Will you come with me?”
Something about the way he smiled, happy and bright, brought a blush to her cheeks.
“All right. But seriously. No strings”
Reese nodded, and then to her surprise, he reached out across the console. For a second, she thought he was going to try to grope her, but instead, he found her hand, holding it gently. His hand was hard, and she noticed that there were some slight burn marks across the back, skin that was a shinier and tighter than the rest. She had seen plenty of chefs with marks like that, but she didn't think that he had gotten them cooking.
“It's going to be okay. It really will be.”
Why did she actually believe him when he said it?
Chapter 4
When Tara mentioned getting dropped off at a damned gas station to find a ride, Reese felt as if something had snapped in his head. It had taken a moment to answer in any kind of rational way, rather than shouting he would have to be dead first.
No. All that matters now is that she's coming with me. She's still with me, and that means that I'm on the right track.
Somehow, the mission that he had been on for some seven decades had been pushed to the back of his mind. Instead, his mind was filled with the young woman who was now sleeping in his car, her head tilted against the glass, her knees drawn up slightly. She was plush, as he tended to like his women, and even under the scent of fried food and coffee, he could catch a hint of her natural smell, something that made the primal part of him hiss in pleasure and recognition.
Mine. My mate. Mine. Mine.
The dragon that lived inside him wasn't the most verbal thing. It communicated through impulse and desire and heat. It had never been more clear than when it laid eyes on Tara. She belonged with him now, him and his dragon both, and there was no arguing with it.
His ancestors would have called it fate, and science might call it instinct, but now that he was confronted by her, the reality of his mate, Reese knew that the description didn't matter. Words would never be enough to capture everything he felt for her, how he had become aware of a cavern inside himself that was echoingly empty before she had arrived to fill it. His dragon knew it immediately, knew it with a strength and a certainty that brooked no argument.
She was his mate, and that was all that mattered.
Of course, she was also up to her neck in one of the greatest crimes that could be committed against one of his kind, and that would need to be figured out as well.
The first large town they came to, he pulled over to find them accommodations. An AirBnB host was happy to take twice his normal fare for an immediate reservation and to make his garage available as well, and Reese sighed with relief. They now had a place to spend the night, and they had probably put enough distance between themselves and the burned cultists that they didn't have to worry about pursuit. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough for the time being.
Tara jumped when he touched her shoulder gently, looking so startled for a moment that his heart ached.
“Come on. We have a safe place to stay.”
The house was a small bungalow, tastefully decorated, comfortable, and more important, on a sheltered street where it would be difficult for attackers to approach unnoticed. As Reese locked the door after them and closed all the shades, he watched as Tara looked a little longer than necessary at the pictures on the walls: relatives, trophies, certifications, all the flotsam of a life.
“Doing all right?”
She smiled at him, tired, but there was a genuine warmth to it that sent a shiver up his spine.
Make her happy, the dragon inside him hissed, and Reese wished it was as easy as asking her what she wanted, what he could get for her. Most women didn't take kindly to men they had met an hour ago offering them whatever their hearts desired, and his dragon would just have to be all right with that.
Every dragon was brought up knowing the stories about fated mates. There were the ancient stories, of course, the ones recorded carefully in the deep archives under Rome and Kiev. More recently, there were funded and controlled studies talking about genetic compatibility and the chance for viable offspring, less romantic but equally compelling.
Reese had read the accounts, as fascinated as any one of his kind about the chance of finding the one that was meant for him, but somehow he had never thought about how it could really look or really feel.
He hadn't expected the warmth that seemed to circle his heart at her slight smile, or to feel as if he needed to remake the world because the slight wistfulness in it.
"I'm doi
ng all right, pending a real discussion of everything that's happened in the last few hours. Still waiting on that, by the way. But this is the first time I've been in a real home in the last six years, I think."
Reese tilted his head slightly, watching her.
"Real home? Don't you live in one?"
"I live in a room that is about three steps up from a squat above a hardware store," she said. "The only one who is going to call that a real home is probably the rat that keeps sneaking around at night."
Reese couldn't keep the look of horror off of his face, and the only thing that saved the moment was that Tara laughed at him. Her laugh was younger than he might have thought, given her tough-as-nails attitude. She covered her mouth, practically giggling at him.
"Nice cars, nice clothes, enough cash to pay double for this place, you are a spoiled rich boy," she pronounced, and Reese smiled faintly.
"Never said I wasn't. The only rats I've ever met have been in ruins, and then I was more concerned about the ghouls."
"So ghouls exist? Guillermo del Toro was right?"
"You'd be surprised, really. But we can get into cosmology after we've had some food. I am not going to start talking about ghouls until I have some decent food in front of me."
Tara hesitated for a moment, and then, almost guiltily, she pulled a large plastic tub out of her bag. There was something thick and suspicious slopping around inside, and Reese frowned in confusion.
"It's clam chowder from where I work," she said diffidently. "Do you want to share?"
The first thing that occurred to Reese was that no, he did not want to share anything that looked like that. Then, because sometimes miracles did happen, he looked at Tara, took in her wary gaze and the way her shoulders hunched up a little, as if she were expecting a blow. His heart broke a little at that.
How often does she have someone to share with? How many of those people acted like I almost did?
"That looks good," he said. "I eat a lot though, and that won't be enough. How about you go get that heated, and I'll see about getting some food ordered?"
The nerviness that he sensed in her didn't dissipate entirely, but it eased, and the smile she gave him was sweet.
"Sure. I'll eat anything, so get whatever you want."
"Good, because I'm picky and very particular."
She laughed at that, as he hoped she would. When she was in the kitchen clattering some pots around, he found an Italian place that delivered.
Bit of everything, he figured. I'm hungry, and so's she.
Tara still seemed occupied in the kitchen, and Reese decided that it was past time he took a shower. He had been relying on quick hotel and truck stop showers for a while now, and if he was quick, he could still catch the food when it showed up.
"Showering," he called, and when Tara responded with something muttered and vague, he slipped into the bathroom.
The hot water felt like a pleasure he didn't really deserve, and for several long moments, he closed his eyes under the spray. It should have relaxed him, but he doubted that anything could really damp down the excitement that ran through his body.
The dragon rattled in his skull, wondering why he wasn't with his mate right now, why he wasn't touching her at all times, and Reese snorted.
Because I don't want to spook her and send her screaming into the night...
She had taken dragons pretty well. Maybe they should give the fact that he wanted to keep her next to him for the rest of his life on the quiet side for at least a day or so. The dragon made an irritated sound at that, but he thought it would behave.
My mate, he thought, and he ignored the rest of it, the things that had sent him away from his clan and on a hopeless search for almost seventy years. No need to think about that until he had to.
Reese remembered to get out before he had used all the hot water, and it wasn't until he had dried off that he remembered he'd left his bag hanging on the outside of the bathroom door. With the towel wrapped around his hips, he made his way to the bag, and of course just as he reached for it, Tara appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
"Okay, I have it on a slow simmer, so we can ... can ... wow."
Reese straightened quickly, turning to face her, and he couldn't help grinning at the shocked look on her face.
"Like what you see?"
Most women did, and all right, maybe that was a little vain, but it was true. He was tall and muscular without the sculpted look that was more ornamental than functional, and he wasn't bad-looking by any means.
"No tail," Tara said, because her brain seemed to be running a little while behind her mouth. "That is. You said in the car. No tail."
Reese glanced down at the towel around his hips.
"I don't know if you can tell that without a more thorough inspection," he said finally. "Do you want a closer look?"
That made her snap her eyes up at him, breaking her out of the spell he had apparently inadvertently cast.
"That's your idea of a pickup line?"
"It is if it worked. If it didn't, it's a not very good joke. Which is it?"
"Definitely a not very good joke," Tara said firmly, and then she hesitated.
"If you want to try a pickup line, I'm sort of partial to ones about how nice my eyes are."
Reese blinked, and Tara disappeared back into the kitchen.
All right, compliment her eyes next time, Reese thought with a grin.
Chapter 5
This is nice, Tara thought, which was pretty funny because nice wasn't what she had been expecting tonight.
She didn't know what to expect after being attacked by random men on her way home from work, or after being rescued by an actual fire-breathing dragon, but she knew it wasn't pizza or a strange sense of comfort and warmth that she hadn't felt in ... well. Ever.
As they ate, Tara couldn't help sneaking looks at Reese, now regrettably dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, who had ordered a pizza, a foil container of lasagna and a full loaf of garlic bread and looked perfectly capable of devouring most of it on his own. He was clean-cut and good-looking, but there was something else to it, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Then she had to look away because if she looked at him for too long, it was led to a strange feeling at the bottom of her belly, a sensation like she was standing at the edge of a precipice and about to fall.
No, Tara thought suddenly. Like I think I can I fly.
“It's the calories,” Reese said, setting down his empty bowl of chowder, and Tara jumped.
“What?”
“Fire-breathing's a work-out. That heat has to come from somewhere, and afterwards, I need a lot of calories. Wasn't that why you were looking at me?”
“Hey, I don't judge how others eat,” Tara said automatically, and then from the slow smile that crosses Reese's face, she could tell that she had somehow mis-stepped.
“So why were you looking at me?” Reese said softly.
Tara swallowed hard, because she couldn't say what she was actually thinking, couldn't talk about the gracefulness of his hands or the way she felt as if she could look at him and find the answer to something that she hadn't even thought to ask.
“Why shouldn't I look at you?” Tara said, blushing. “I've never met a dragon before.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
“Well. Maybe not, I guess.”
“We've never been very obvious,” Reese said, reaching for another portion of lasagna. “We're rare, and we like to keep to ourselves. We don't even keep company with each other more than we can help it.”
“Sounds like a family to me,” Tara muttered, winning a startled laugh from Reese.
“We're there for each other, we give each other what we need. I guess most of what we need is space. Except from our mates, of course.”
When Reese said the word mates, Tara swallowed hard, feeling suddenly dizzy. She realized that the whole time he had been speaking, he had been watching her, his eyes bright and un
blinking. Yes, she could see the dragon that lived inside him, something that set him apart from a normal person as clearly as the fire-breathing did. It made her heart beat faster, and she was briefly shocked by the urge to lean towards him, to reach out and to touch the firm line of his lips, to see how warm he was now that he had eaten.
Tara shook her head slightly to clear it, because that wasn't her. She wasn't like this.. She glanced at Reese again, but he was tugging another piece of pizza out of the box. Maybe she had imagined all of that?
“What do you mean, except for your mates?” she said finally. “Are they the exception?”
“To everything,” Reese agreed. “Everything you can always say about dragons goes right out the window when it comes to our mates, the ones we're meant to bond to. You called me a spoiled rich boy? Well, you don't know the half of it. We're geared to build up our own hoards, to collect as much treasure as we can, and to make it all ours.”
“Sounds fun,” Tara said, making a face.
“You have no idea. I was with this sea captain about ten years ago, and we found this wreck ... well, never mind. But either the greed led to the solitary nature of the dragons or the solitary nature allowed the greed to thrive, no one knows. However ... then our mates get involved, and it all goes to hell.”
“You mean you pick up on the basic kindergarten lesson that sharing is caring?”
“Basically. Suddenly, that instinct gets turned inside out, habits of a lifetime go tumbling right out the window, and nothing else in the world matters except...”
“Except?”
“Giving your mate everything you have and hoping and praying it's enough.”
Tara suddenly found it hard to breathe. She had mostly believed Reese about everything up until this point. After all, she believed what her own eyes told her, and the fire-breathing was pretty convincing.
When she met his eyes now, however, she felt something immense and old there. It was patient, but there was such a hunger to it, such a longing. Tara wondered what it was like to have all of that desire and that need, and then to have it suddenly and abruptly channeled into one person.