by Lisa Daniels
The stole back into the hall silently and didn’t speak until they were in the parking lot. It was only then that they paused and looked at one another, unsure of what to say.
“You’re a dragon,” she finally muttered. “I-I don’t think I’ve ever met a dragon before.”
“You’d be surprised,” Cypress joked dryly. “We work in the entertainment industry.”
She looked at him.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled and his eyes widened.
“For what?”
“For not going to you first, for listening to Sam when my gut told me that it was wrong. He played us against one another and I fell right into it.”
“So did I,” Cypress reminded her. “I thought you were married, remember?”
“I guess we both got played.”
“I guess so.”
They were silent for a long moment before Cypress inhaled and asked the inevitable question.
“What does this mean for us?” he asked. “You know who I am. You know what I’ve done. Is this something you can get past—”
“I’m already past it,” Graciela interjected. “But I do have a question.”
“You can ask me anything,” he assured her. “I won’t lie to you, not ever.”
She paused before looking down.
“What Sam said about making me immortal… can we do that?”
Fear clung to his gut and he shook his head vehemently.
“No,” he said softly. “We can’t.”
She looked up again to meet his eyes, the disappointment apparent on her face.
“Why not?”
“Rowan exhibited all the symptoms of what happens when a mortal is turned,” he explained quietly. “The psychosis, the delusions… but that’s just a part of it. Death happens in about ninety percent of all mortals who are turned. It is slow and painful. It is not a risk I would be willing to take with you.”
She paused and exhaled in a whoosh of air.
“Okay,” she smiled. “I was just asking.”
But he knew she was doing more than just asking. She had been hoping for a different answer, one which would ensure that they had a life together where neither of them aged or died.
I want that for us, too, Cypress thought sadly, pulling her back into his arms. But for right now, this is all we have—a mortal life.
Graciela buried her face into his chest and he stroked her hair tenderly.
“There is an upside to all this,” he offered lightly after a few moments. Graciela sniffed and wiped her tears away hastily with the back of her hand.
“There are many upsides,” she said. “We’re together. Sam has been stopped—or at least stopped around here.”
“Yes… and he’s probably going to take Rowan with him. You won’t have to worry about that Dance Diva again,” he chuckled.
Graciela balked.
“Oh, damn!” she gasped. “Dance Divas!”
“What?” Cypress asked in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“You burnt down the studio! We’re going to need to find a new location to film.”
Guilt flooded Cypress and his mouth gaped open, but to his shock, Graciela burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” he asked dubiously.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend who burned down my job before.”
Cypress snorted but he couldn’t help but laugh also.
“Good things happen when you meet your mate,” he replied, kissing her softly on the lips.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I see that now.”
Epilogue
“Babe! It’s on!” Graciela yelled from the living room. A low groan reverberated through the room and she laughed.
“I’m not watching it!” he insisted. “It was bad enough I had to live it!”
“I had to live it with you,” she reminded him. “All you had to do was dance. I had it way worse, or have you forgotten?”
Cypress appeared in the dining room, the open concept allowing Graciela to watch him as he shook his head.
“I still can’t believe I got suckered into doing it,” he sighed. “Damn Sam and his matchmaking fails.”
Graciela grimaced at the reminder.
“Hey, at least everything worked out the way it was supposed to,” she reminded him. “You have a good agent now and all the offers are pouring in.”
“I should have listened to you from the start,” he said, ambling toward her, a glass of pinot noir in his hand. She took it eagerly and patted the sofa at her side. They had been going back and forth between her brownstone and his penthouse, neither really ready to give up their sanctuary. Instead, they alternated nights but never spent one apart.
The introduction music for Dance Divas cued and Cypress moaned again as though the sound was painful to his ears.
“I will never live this down in the biz,” he complained.
“You’re your own worst critic,” Graciela told him, snuggling against his strong frame. “You’re an amazing dancer and honestly, I’m a little jealous of the chemistry between you and Carlie. You look incredible together.”
“You know who has real chemistry together?” Cypress whispered in her ear. “You and I.”
“Well, of course,” Graciela laughed. “No one can compare to what we have.”
She inhaled his scent and permitted the familiar feeling of warmth to wash over her as the show started, the judges appearing on stage as the crowd cheered with far too much enthusiasm.
“What do they give the audience members? Cocaine?” Cypress joked. “No one can be this excited to watch a bunch of strangers dancing on stage.”
“You’re a party pooper,” Graciela snickered. “They’re mere feet away from stars and singers. It’s exciting!”
“If you say so.”
“I get paid to say so.”
The doorbell rang, echoing through the spacious house, and the couple looked at one another in confusion.
“Please don’t tell me you invited people over to witness my humiliation,” Cypress pleaded as Graciela rose to her feet.
“You won,” she reminded him. “And no, I didn’t invite anyone over.”
“Good. Get rid of them. I’m getting all heated up by this dancing. It’s making me want to do things to your body.”
Graciela pulled open the French door and froze.
“Hi, Graciela.”
She parted her lips and screamed out for her lover.
“It’s okay, Graciela,” Sam said, brushing past her. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
Cypress flew into the foyer, his eyes wide and alert.
“What is—oh, hell no!”
Instantly, Sam was flying back against the doors, Cypress’ forearm pinned to his throat.
“Do you have a death wish?” Cypress hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“Let me down!” Sam choked. “I’m not a danger.”
“Sure,” Cypress snorted, but he didn’t release his former agent. “Tell us what you want.”
“I want to help you.”
“There is nothing you have that we could possibly want, Sam,” Graciela muttered. “Cypress, put him down. He’s sweating all over my door.”
Reluctantly, Cypress did as he was told and Sam dropped unceremoniously onto the floor.
“Thank you, Graciela.”
He looked around appreciatively.
“This is a nice place—”
“Why don’t you cut the crap and tell us why you’re here,” Cypress interjected. “You’ve been here three seconds and I want to kill you. I can only imagine what prolonging your stay will do for my temper.”
“Fine,” Sam said, sighing. “I’ve come to offer Graciela immortality.”
“Are you deaf or just stupid?” Cypress wanted to know. “Get out of here.”
“No! No, wait, I know what you said, but this is different.”
“Get out, Sam,” Cypress growled.
“No!” Graciela cried. “Let’s hear him out
.”
“Graciela, we’ve talked about this—”
“Things have changed,” Sam said quickly. “I can tell you how… if you help me.”
“Here we go,” Cypress hissed. “What do you want now? Graciela’s brain? My bone marrow?”
“I…I need you to save Rowan’s life.”
The words hung heavily in the foyer as they looked at him in disbelief.
“What happened?” Graciela asked softly and Sam’s face fell miserably.
“The turn. It’s taking its toll on her. She’s going to die soon.”
“You knew that was going to happen,” Cypress said unforgivingly. “What’s with the burst of conscience?”
“I love her,” Sam muttered, a pink tinge touching his cheeks. “I can’t let her die.”
“Then save her,” Cypress retorted. “What does this have to do with us?”
“I…I don’t have the resources I used to have. My money, it’s gone. The transfusions she needs…”
“Jesus Christ, Sam. You fool.”
“Of course we’ll help her,” Graciela said, shooting her lover a warning look. “Bring her to us.”
“You really would? After everything?” Sam asked, his voice catching.
“Of course. We’re not devoid of compassion,” Cypress snapped. “Now, get out.”
“No!” Sam said eagerly. “I wasn’t kidding. I can promise Graciela immortality if you do this.”
“No, you can’t!”
“I can!” Sam insisted. “That’s where all my money has gone, Cypress. I’ve been researching ways to turn mortals without the side effects.”
“Like death, you mean?”
“Yes, like death.”
“Oh, and now you have a snake oil cure, do you?” Cypress asked sarcastically.
“No,” he said sadly. “There’s no cure, but there is a way to know which mortals won’t die if turned.”
The couple looked at him expectantly, Graciela’s pulse racing.
“Carriers,” Sam said. “Carriers can be turned and not suffer any of the side effects.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Cypress growled. “You’ve been researching what, a year?”
“I’ve been researching a lot longer than that,” he sighed. “Now I have proof.”
“Proof?”
“I’ve tested my theory on rats, injecting them with carrier blood and then turning them. This past year, I’ve done the same with mortal carriers. They are thriving without any of the effects that befall non-carriers. It’s the genetic marker, Cypress. I’m telling you, that’s the key.”
“Get out,” Cypress growled.
“I’ll do it!” Graciela cried.
“No!” Cypress was aghast. “You can’t.”
“I want to,” she insisted. “His research makes sense.”
“His research—”
“I’m going to get Rowan,” Sam said, turning to leave. “I’ll let you two fight it out.”
Cypress stared at her in amazement, the hurt and worry clouding his eyes.
“Babe, do you know what you’re saying?” he asked. “Trusting Sam…”
“Cy, being with you this last year has made me realize that one day, I’m going to get older and eventually die. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course not!” he snapped. “But I don’t want your time to be over any sooner than it should!”
“But it doesn’t have to be over at all,” she murmured, cupping his face in her hands. “Look at me.”
Their eyes met and he swallowed the lump in his throat.
“I believe this is fate calling out to us again,” she whispered. “We’ve taken leaps of faith before. Why don’t we do it again?”
He lowered his head and Graciela slipped her arms around his neck, drawing him to her body. Their heartbeats were in perfect sync, their breathing even.
“The universe has been insisting we stay together. Let’s believe it.”
They parted and locked gazes again.
“All right,” he agreed. “Let’s take another leap together.”
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Forge Blood
Steam Dragon Shifters
Book 2
By Lisa Daniels
Chapter One – Helga
Water hissed into steam. The acrid smell of coal, iron, and soot made up the industrial worker's perfume. Helga wore it as her scent, as she worked on her new product. The heat from the forge seared her. Mottled skin on her arms indicated the scalding kiss of sparks. Dragonhide gloves gripping the tongs, she pulled out her newest, glowing creation.
Ready to be banged into an officer's sword, for a collector who wanted the real thing, without the price tag attached to it. It'd taken a while to procure the Hinterlands steel. But being friends with people in high places helped.
Pouring the molten metal into cast. The slag filling the spaces, the metalcasting like magic. Helga loved that part. She lived with it, forming burning necklaces in her dreams, warping great tongues of fire into delicate weapons.
But sometimes, she preferred forging the traditional way, before smelting and great furnaces became so commonplace, and all the world had was a dedicated blacksmith, forging the weapon by hand tools and hours of muscle work.
Lowering the wodge of glowing metal onto the anvil, she gripped a hammer and began to work at banging out the metal, already folded several times. Shaping it into flattened perfection. Perspiration built up behind her steel visor. Her dark eyes squinted through the slots. The long, hypnotic part. With a sprinkling of salt upon the heat, the sparks flew like wildfire.
At least this time, she rolled down her sleeves and wore protection over her face, not repeating mistakes of the past.
Clang. Sparks flew from the hot metal. Showers of it. Speckling the floor, her boots, along with a soft hissing, and scorched leather. Stamping out impurities.
Almost finishing with her latest masterpiece, someone knocked on the door.
“Yes?” Her voice sounded muffled under the great square visor.
“Your mother wants you for something. I don't know what—oh. What's this?”
Irritation throbbed through Helga's veins. With effort, she mustered control, and turned to smile at her father, though he obviously caught no expression under the mask. Her father now handled another one of her contraptions. Polished steel and wood merged together for the base, a central chamber similar to the guns she'd been studying, and a propulsion chamber for the crossbow bolts. Because why not?
Hundreds of hours of work, in her father's hands.
“It's my latest invention. I was trying to combine the repeating crossbow with either one of those hand cannons or muskets, and I thought, why not go further? Why need the string? Get the hammer to fire off a quarrel instead.”
Her father's face wrinkled up. A factory worker. He only canned food. Not the manly technician he wished to be. “How does it work?”
It doesn't. Helga took off her mask. She'd managed the spin, only just made it so that it didn't tear itself apart, but she still had issues with the tension. And it needed a better way to be reloaded. Maybe it needed a string after all.
“I'm still working on it, Papa. Once I finish it, I'm sure there'll be buyers.”
She could almost see “So a failure, then,” forming across his lips, but he repressed it. “That's nice, dear.” He put it down. “Come on. Your mother wants you.”
With a grunt, Helga slotted her mask back on. “Give me ten minutes. I can't allow this to cool too much. It doesn't shape right.”
Janson Greene left the room, likely still wearing that judgmental twirl of his lips. He tried. Helga knew he tried. But he just didn't understand. And, well, Mother did have a way of welding her opinion into anything that lived in her proximity.
They didn't approve of her little workshop. She rented a small, former sweetshop space, and had converted it into her workshop. To tinke
r with inventions and create things without interference from her parents.
She'd have to finish it later. She bathed it in the water tank, closing her eyes to enjoy the hissing liquid, before resting it on her sword-stand. Walking past her castings, things she planned one day to produce at a high rate, she gave one last glance at her not quite working crossgun, before she left and locked the little workshop, walking across a darkening street where the factory workers staggered home or wandered into the bars. Ready to drown their day's efforts in poison. She licked salt off her lips, wiped off the day's efforts that had beaded on her forehead.
Home was a dilapidated cottage on the corner street, paling in comparison to the other residential blocks that existed. Her family's biggest claim was that it had been theirs for generations.
The second she stepped inside, the aroma of freshly baked bread and scrap meat sauce assaulted her nostrils. Her father now sat himself in the corner of their little living room, slurping on what Helga knew to be Sector Whisky. He did love that stuff.
“Finally!” Helga's plump mother waddled in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “I swear, if we didn't stop you, you'd be locked in that dreadful shop all night. Come, come. Sit down. Eat.” Her black eyes glinted. Steel cast her expression, leaving Helga in no doubt that she was due for yet another lecture on how she squandered her youth and womanhood on things best left to men. Elma Greene already found complaint with her daughter's growing muscles, making any of the usual woman's clothes look awkward and stupid against her shape.
No matter how many times Helga told them that she didn't want any of the things her family expected of her, that all she wanted to do was open a workshop to the public and sell her inventions, repair other people's products—they ignored her.
Elma always said she regretted letting Helga spend time at Old Tam's, the former local blacksmith, and the one who enthusiastically allowed Helga to help him with everything, and shared his secrets with her. What her parents used to love—Helga being out from underfoot in the little house, working with a respectable member of the community—turned into their vice.
Helga sat at the table, wishing Old Tam still lived. He'd intended to let her take over his business in time, hire her as an official apprentice. The almost escape gnawed at her. If only. If ever.