A Mate to Believe In (Dragons of Mount Aterna Book 2)

by Riley Storm

  She smiled briefly, but caught herself and suppressed it. This wasn’t the time for that. She needed answers, truth. Not jokes.

  It was time for the big question. The one that had really been eating away at her. “What are you, Pace?”

  He nodded. “I figured you would have that question. Everyone always wants to know. Not everyone can accept it though.”

  “Accept what? Why not?”

  “What I am. The truth of it,” he explained. “It doesn’t fit within your worldview. That’s why you think you’re going crazy, seeing things that shouldn’t be possible. Some people can accept what they are told, that maybe, just maybe, the world isn’t exactly as they think it is. Others…can’t.”

  “What happens to the others?” she asked quietly.

  “They usually go insane,” he said regretfully. “But that usually happens to those that discover our secret by accident. Who aren’t meant to know. People like you, people who have an anchor, someone that can help them with it, they usually fare better.”

  Carla thought his words over. “You,” she said slowly. “You’re my anchor?”

  Pace shrugged. “I’m starting to think so. I don’t think we’ve gone through what we have, done what we have done, for this to be the end of whatever is going on between us. I think fate has other plans for that.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But you still haven’t told me what you are.”

  “I,” he said, taking a deep breath, then pausing.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t easy for Pace to say either. Carla could see it on his face, that he was struggling to say it, to put it out there.

  He was afraid she was going to run away again.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” she said quietly. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I can only imagine how badly my reaction to seeing…whatever I saw, must have hurt you. Thank you for what you did,” she told him, meaning every word of it. “But I’m here, now. I got out of my car. I want to know, Pace. I want to know the truth.”

  “The truth,” he echoed. “The truth is, Carla, that I am a dragon shapeshifter.”

  She blinked once, slowly, processing his words. “A dragon shapeshifter. So you can shapeshift, as the word says, into a dragon?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Last night, that was no dragon I’ve ever seen in a picture.”

  “No. You saw the merging of the two. The half and half. When you are ready, I will show you the real me. My other side. All you have to do is ask.”

  Carla nodded. “A dragon,” she repeated. “Okay.”

  “It’s okay not to believe me,” he said with a smile. “That’s normal.”

  “And the fire?” she asked, her voice a higher pitch than usual.

  “Fire dragon,” he said bluntly, then lifted one palm into the air. Fire burst into existence, leapt up, twirled around and landed in his other palm, circling his wrist like a bracelet.

  Then it went out as quickly as it had arrived.

  “Of course. Fire dragon,” she said. “So that’s how you were able to protect us last night.”

  “Yes,” he said fiercely. “I am sorry that it was sprung on you like that, but I had no choice. A hundred out of a hundred times I do the exact same thing, Carla. Your life—and Barton’s—is my priority. I wish it had been different, but I don’t regret what I did.”

  “And we appreciate that,” she said, meaning every word. “Genuinely, from the bottom of our hearts, and with a tail-wag to boot, we mean it. Thank you for that. But…Pace, why did you have to save us in the first place?”

  There it was, the other question that had been nagging on her, eating away at her insides. What was the reason for the fire?

  “Our suspect,” he said slowly.

  “He’s like you too, isn’t he?” she asked excitedly. She had been on the right track the night before after all.

  “Yes. He’s like me, and he tried to kill you last night,” Pace said, his voice a snarl.

  “But you stopped him,” she said quietly. “Last night, you stopped him. You put the entire house out. Why didn’t you do that earlier then? Right away?”

  “He left,” Pace explained. “I didn’t want to reveal what I was to you. I want to keep it secret. Or I did. So I tried to get us out of there. But I made the wrong choice. I should have fought it from the start, put all my energy into it.”

  She could feel the shame pouring off him for it.

  “Once we got out, he left, and the house was just regular fire without his added power behind it. So I put it out for you. It was the least I could do,” he said, hanging his head. “Even if it was too little, too late.”

  “Why were you afraid to tell me what you are?” she asked.

  “Really?” he said with a snort. “Come on, Carla. I have no way of knowing how you would respond to it, and besides, we don’t really tell anyone unless they’re going to be a permanent part of our lives. Can you imagine if it got out, if the government got wind of us and came back? They be trying to round us up, do a bunch of experiments again and steal our powers if they could. We can’t have that. So we hide. We don’t tell anyone. Even if it sometimes hurts us, or those closest to us.”

  His eyes caught hers at that moment. Was he trying to tell her something there? Something about…them?

  “I guess that makes sense,” she said, not wanting the silence to stretch on for too long. “But I still have to admit, I’m having a hard time buying all this. Dragons, really?”

  Pace grinned. “Wanna see it?”

  For a moment, she thought he was making a sexual joke.

  Oh, God, did I sleep with a dragon? What does that mean? The thought raced through her, but she pushed it aside.

  “See what?” she asked, deciding that clarification was best at this time.

  “The other side of me,” he said quietly.

  “My dragon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Pace

  They walked around back of the barn. From there, the structure would block any view of him from passersby. This far out in the country, there were no neighbors to speak of, not with the trees blocking the road anyway.

  Pace shook his arms as he backed away some, trying to get rid of the jitters. He’d never heard about one of his kind having performance issues, so to speak, but being the first wasn’t overly appealing. He wanted to prove to Carla that everything was alright, and most importantly, that he was telling her the truth. No tricks, nothing.

  “Here?” she asked, looking around. “Is this good?”

  “Yeah,” he said, then hesitated.

  “What is it? What next?” she wanted to know, watching him intently.

  There was some hesitation in her body, some trepidation, he could see it. She was shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot frequently, and her eyes darted around a lot, but they kept coming back to him.

  “Can you turn around?” he asked, trying to smile.

  It came out so awkward-feeling he just shut it down immediately, pressing his lips into a flat line. There was no sense in scaring the girl any more than she already was.

  “What? Why?”

  “Um, well, the clothes don’t really shift with me,” he said. “They get destroyed. I don’t have a backup set of anything comfortable with me, so I have to get naked and—”

  Carla crossed her arms. “I’ve seen you naked. You’ve been inside me, for heaven’s sake. I am not going to faint at the sight of your—admittedly quite nice—dick, okay?”

  Pace watched her cheeks turn a tinge of pink. It was nice to know that she still felt a natural inclination to flirt with him, despite the gravity of the situation. It was that undercurrent of comfort that gave him a slight feeling of optimism about what was going to happen next.

  “Uh, sure,” he said, taking off his jacket, and quickly slipping the buttons open for his shirt. That followed, then shoes, socks and pants.

  “Aren’t I the one that’s supposed to be afraid?” Carla asked w
hen he hesitated with his boxers, thumbs hooked into the waistband.

  She was egging him on, and he knew it, but somehow the taunt still worked. Damn women and knowing how to manipulate a male ego.

  Why do we make it so easy for them?

  The boxers went down and he stood up. As he’d expected, her eyes flicked downward. Pace wiggled his hips, causing him to bounce slightly, right while she was looking. This brought a giggle from Carla, then she suddenly straightened, clamping hands over her mouth as she was busted.

  “Done getting an eyeful,” he muttered.

  She grinned, then sobered. “Okay, show me what you’ve got,” she said.

  “You realize,” he told her, stepping back, no longer feeling nervous. “That the only reason you’re acting so secure, is you think this is some sort of, well, not game, but you don’t truly believe, deep down. Which is fine, but trust me, the second I start to shift, you’re gonna freeze up, not be able to say a word. You might even run away. Then who will be the one laughing?”

  “Hopefully not you,” she said. “That would make you kind of a dick.”

  Pace gaped in shock. “That’s not…but I didn’t mean it that…why would you?” he sighed, sagging forward, realizing he wasn’t going to win in the battle of the wits. She had him outclassed.

  But he still had one advantage.

  Without saying anything else, he called to his dragon side, letting it flow through him. The change was rapid. From the inside, those who experienced it, the transition was smooth, even. The world changed, everything seem to grow smaller, and he found himself looking down on it in a way he normally did not.

  His shoulders changed and additional muscles clumped as his wings sprouted from his back, reaching up to blot out the sun in a sea of dull amber.

  The rest of his body glittered brightly in the mid-morning rays, however, the burnished golden scales catching and reflecting the individual rays in a wild cascading pattern that dazzled the eye.

  “Who’s speechless now?” he said, taking a moment to adjust to speaking from his snout. It was also a weird transitory period as he remembered how to use muscles that hadn’t been used in some time.

  His wings flapped gently several times before he tucked them in against his flanks, settling his entire body back down toward the grass. The others back at his home had all told him about their experiences, and some of the women had given him some pointers on how to best appear unthreatening. The apparent consensus was to get as low to the ground as possible. Get on Carla’s level.

  The entire snout of his dragon came to rest on the grass, so that he could look at her on eye-level. His head was as big as she was tall, his eye more than half her body height, but the effect seemed to work. Carla relaxed slightly as he drew down.

  “Holy. Shit.”

  Much to his surprise, she didn’t turn and run for her car, screaming her head off. That was a reaction he’d been told might happen. Not many humans could accept that what they were seeing was real, and so their fight-or-flight reflexes kicked in.

  Since no human knew how to fight a dragon, they instinctively ran. Or so he was told. Carla was standing her ground, looking at him in awe. Her head was running from back to front, tail to snout, taking it all in.

  “You aren’t screaming,” he said, the words a little musical, the tone pleasant to the ear.

  “Part of me is,” she breathed. “Inside. Telling me that this isn’t real, that it can’t be.”

  “It’s real,” Pace told her, blinking slowly, his dual eyelids closing and retracting. “Very real.”

  “Your horns are bigger now,” she said quietly, meaning the trio on his head.

  “All of me is bigger now,” he said. “It kinda comes with the territory.”

  “Yeah, of course.” Carla rubbed her face, gave her cheeks a couple of slaps, then pinched herself on the arm several times, leaving red marks.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, concerned that she was losing her grip.

  “Just making sure I’m not dreaming,” she said, her voice still distant, light, almost airy. She was stuck in disbelief.

  “It’s me, Pace. This is all real. No magic, no tricks. Just a side of the world that most don’t know about. Humans think of us as legends, no more, and we’re quite happy keeping it that way, you understand.”

  “I think I’m starting to,” she said, still staring.

  “You can come closer when you’re rea—” Pace didn’t get to finish his sentence before Carla was stomping forward through the grass. “Oh.”

  “Something wrong?” she asked, pausing.

  “Um, not really. I guess. No. It’s just that I didn’t, you know, didn’t expect you to be so confident. I figured it would take you much longer to approach.”

  “I’m still talking to Pace,” she said. “I can tell that. The dragon’s mouth is moving, but it’s him I hear, even if the voice is a little different. I don’t feel threatened, despite…well, you know. Dragon. Plus, I guess I’m trained not to freeze up in situations. I mean, there are no situations like this, but at the unexpected. I’m trained to work through it, react and do my job.”

  Pace was overjoyed at the way she was handling this. Maybe it wouldn’t be a massive struggle to rebuild things between them and—Carla’s hand came to rest on his flank. The human hand was so tiny, he shouldn’t have reacted, but the feel of it, of her touch, shocked him, and he flinched.

  “Now who’s the scared one?” she teased as he relaxed, allowing her to feel his scales, run her fingers over his wings and knock on his talons.

  She walked up to his snout, pressing her hand against it.

  Pace extended one wing, touching the tip of it to the ground. “If you’re not scared, then I dare you to climb on and go for a ride.”

  Carla froze. “Wait. Are you serious? Me, go for a ride?”

  He grinned. Finally, he was getting the better of her, forcing her to act nervous, let her fears come out!

  “Yeah, exactly. You can sit on my back, grab onto some horns. We’ll go for a flight and—”

  “Sweet!” Carla cried, rushing for his wing.

  “What? But you’re supposed to be scared,” he protested, pulling the membrane back up to his side.

  “Scared? Of flying on a dragon? Are you nuts? That’s the coolest thing ever! Come on, let’s do it!”

  Pace shook his head, craning the long neck around so he could look back at her. “You’re weird. Maybe a little crazy. Bit of a thrill-seeker. I did not see that one coming. Unfortunately though, we can’t do it. Right now.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well, for one, I think you’re running on mostly adrenaline right now. I don’t want it to fade while we’re in the sky. Second, it’s the middle of the day. We can’t fly at this time. People will see us.”

  Carla sobered. “Of course. Yes. That would raise a lot of questions. People would begin looking. I…I’m sorry, I understand. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s fine,” he told her. “Don’t worry about it. Your brain isn’t wired to think about those sorts of things. Mine is. It’s not an issue, trust me. I can take you though, when the time is right. We can go flying. I promise you it will be unlike anything else you have ever done.”

  “Yeah.” Carla took a deep breath. “Plus, you might be right. I think a lot of this is adrenaline. I still can’t really believe that this is real. That you are. I can see you. Hear you. I’ve touched you. But like…wow. Talk about world-shaking.”

  “Yeah.” Pace decided that was enough, and returned to his human form.

  “So fast,” she said as the transformation happened right in front of her. “Amazing.”

  Pace grabbed up his clothes and hurriedly got dressed. The movement helped cover up the slight wobble of his knees from the relief filling his body. She hadn’t run away. In fact, seeing the truth of what he really was, seemed to have brought Carla back closer to him.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, as he fi
nished buttoning his dress shirt and tucking it into his pants.

  “For what?”

  “Saving my life. And Barton’s too. That silly pup means the world to me. I don’t know what I would do without him.” She shrugged helplessly, as if words weren’t enough. “And for not letting my house burn down fully. I actually think I’ll be able to recover a lot of stuff from within it. Hopefully, insurance will cover a new house. I’m too scared to deal with that just yet.”

  “You don’t have to,” Pace rumbled. “I will cover any other costs they don’t. Build whatever you want. Money is no issue.”

  “I…What? Pace, are you sure?”

  He smiled, a warm, broad, genuine smile. The first one he’d had since the fire started. “Very sure. Despite all that’s gone on, everything, I’ve only ever wanted to make you happy, Carla. I’m not out to get you, I’m not one of the bad guys. Money is just money, I’m blessed to have a lot of it. Let me use it to take care of you.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Pace, that’s so generous. I…”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “You already said it all, by not running away from me just now. By having an open mind, and accepting it.”

  Carla licked her lips. “I’m still working on that, admittedly. It’s going to take some time, Pace. For me to come back to…to…” She flicked a finger back and forth between them.

  “I understand,” he said. “There’s still a case to solve though. Could you use a partner?”

  Now it was her turn to smile. “You know what,” she said. “I could use that indeed.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s go explore that farmhouse. See if we can’t find our next clue to track down this guy and finish what we started.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Pace

  “Any luck?” he asked, pushing papers gently, looking through them for any sort of hint or clue as to what their suspect had been up to.

  What was he planning next? Pace didn’t know, but after the attempt on Carla’s life, he was determined to solve it here and now, without waiting any longer. Nobody else would suffer for this asshole. Nobody else would die.