If There Be Dragons

by Kay Hooper

  “Not empty,” she whispered. “It’s just that I’m afraid—”

  The dragon snorted gently, floating nearer until his golden eyes almost filled her field of vision. “That excuse lacks even the saving grace of orginality, my girl. You’re afraid! That’s the child in you, crying because the room’s dark and there might be a monster in the corner. The woman in you knows that that’s unlikely—not impossible, mind you, but unlikely. The woman in you knows that all she has to do is get up and turn on a light, and we both know that’s better than lying in the dark and crying over what’s quite probably an empty and innocent corner.”

  Brooke tried to think, tried to understand. “But I can’t light up every corner now,” she said. “I can’t look ahead into all the future corners and make sure they don’t have monsters in them. Is that what you mean?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “What’s the rest?” she pleaded helplessly. “Please, I’m so afraid!”

  The dragon shook his head sadly. “The woman knows. Talk to the woman. Being a child is fine if you want to do childish things, but only a woman can love a man the way he needs to be loved. The child can make him laugh and touch his heart—but only the woman can hold his heart.”

  The dragon began sinking slowly into the pit.

  Questions raced through Brooke’s mind. “Wait!” she cried, leaning over the bow to stare into the black pit. “At least tell me how many times I have to jump into this pit!”

  The dragon’s voice, wryly amused, floated up to her. “As many times as it takes—until you get it right. Now, jump! He was always there to catch you, you know. Always.”

  Brooke fell more than jumped, and it occurred to her vaguely as she tumbled through warm darkness that at this rate she’d never learn how to do the thing right….

  At some point she seemed to stop falling and start rising, and before she could be confused about that the dream was only a clear memory and she was awake.

  He was there beside her, the arms around her warm and strong, and Brooke felt her love for him bubbling inside of her; there wasn’t enough room within her to hold it all, but that was all right. Everything was all right. She pushed the fear away, pushed it into the pit and left it for dreams. Dream conversations with the absurd dragon seemed to be dulling the edges of the fear anyway.

  “Good morning, love,” Cody murmured, his golden eyes bright and smiling.

  Brooke lifted her face for his kiss, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her hand. “I love you,” she told him solemnly, because it seemed she hadn’t said it enough, could never say it enough.

  Cody framed her face in his hands, drinking in the look that satisfied a hunger deep inside of him. “I love you too, honey. So much. So very much.” He was just about to demonstrate when a polite—if badly timed—nudge informed them that their houseguest wanted his breakfast and his morning outing.

  Laughing, they disentangled themselves and got up from the couch.

  “If you’ll feed him while I get dressed,” Brooke said, “I’ll take him out afterward.”

  “Deal,” Cody said, his eyes caressing her.

  Nature decided that the day called for sleet, so she spread an icy coating over the deep snow outside. The weather bulletin on the radio dolefully predicted more of the same for days and observed that the larger part of Montana looked to be snowed-in for the winter.

  Mister suddenly rebelled against his self-imposed captivity when Brooke went to feed him, charging out of the barn for all of two feet before halting with a comical look of surprise on his faded gray face when he encountered a snowdrift as high as his chest. Showing the patiently waiting Brooke a yellow-toothed grimace to prove he was still in charge, the old burro worked himself out of the snowbank with dignity and went back inside to the comfort of his straw-lined stall.

  And Phantom surprised both Brooke and Cody by breaking his familiar silence. Asking to go outside twice that day, he disappeared around the corner of the lodge as usual for a few minutes, then returned to the back. Once there, he halted several yards away from the back door, gazed off toward the mountain peaks that were barely visible in the driving sleet, then turned his muzzle to the sky and howled mournfully.

  When it happened that morning, the eerie sound brought Cody quickly back from his bedroom. He found Brooke at the back door, staring out at the wolf.

  “What the hell?” Cody muttered, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her.

  Brooke shook her head slightly. “I don’t know. Look—he seems to be listening. D’you suppose he’s calling Psyche?”

  Phantom howled again

  Cody rested his chin against her hair. “Could be. He’s gained back most of the weight he lost and the leg’s nearly healed. I wonder if she’ll come back for him; the hunting can’t be great around here with this weather.”

  They remained motionless, watching the wolf. He howled once more, seemed to listen again, then turned back for the lodge. If he was dejected, only Phantom knew; to the watching humans his behavior was exactly the same. They dried him off, and he lay down on the rug by the kitchen fire with his accustomed rumbling growl.

  His human caretakers looked at each other, both of them hoping silently that Phantom’s mate would return. Someday.

  It was an odd day, very quiet inside the lodge, very contented. Companionable from the first, Brooke and Cody discovered that last night’s emotional storm had left them more attuned than ever. It was love, but it was more than that, and both were willing to take the time and explore the feelings. And if there was an undercurrent of the strong physical desire that had surprised them both, a spark with every touch, that was fine, too, and worth taking the time to savor.

  There was no need to rush.

  They talked about pasts. Brooke finished her story, telling Cody how her uncle Josh had heard about the mentalist “shows” through a friend and, horrified at his niece’s life, launched a court battle for legal custody of the sixteen-year-old. About the eight peaceful years with Josh. About the second court battle four years ago when her vengeful mother had reappeared in her life and tried to wrest Brooke’s inheritance from her after Josh’s death. About her mother’s death two years ago.

  The story was painful for Brooke to recount, but her bitterness seemed to have melted away. Taking its place was only sadness, a sadness that Cody intuitively understood.

  “She died before things could be…resolved,” he murmured, looking up at Brooke. He was lying with his head in her lap, and she gazed down at him with a smile.

  “Part of me wanted to confront her with what she’d done to me; I never did that, you know. Never said a word to her. But now I’m almost—glad that I didn’t confront her. I can’t love her, can’t respect her, but I’m glad that the guilt of—hasty words won’t haunt me.”

  Cody held her hand tightly. “I’m glad too. And I’m glad that dragon’s been fought.”

  Her green eyes left memory behind and lightened in amusement. “Thanks to a certain dragonslaying prince.”

  He smiled modestly. “Think nothing of it, ma’am. Happy to oblige.”

  Brooke laughed suddenly. “Well, finally! I didn’t think I’d ever hear a Texas accent from you, but that was pure drawl.”

  Cody winced. “I tried to get rid of that accent.”

  “I think it sounds sweet,” Brooke said consideringly.

  “‘I love you’ sounds sweeter,” he murmured.

  She bent her head to kiss him, the electricity arcing between them more powerful with this kiss than the last, growing as it had been growing all day, leaving breath a bit ragged and hearts thudding erratically.

  Brooke looked down at him, the empty ache throbbing inside of her. The tawny fire in his eyes beckoned, called to her, and at the core of the fire was the love that astonished her.

  “You’ve been very patient with me,” she murmured, smoothing back the lock of golden hair from his forehead.

  He caught her hand, held it to h
is cheek. “I love you, Brooke,” he said softly.

  She smiled just a little, but her voice was unsteady. “I’d forgotten what any kind of love felt like. And this…I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know I could feel like this. Do you realize what you’ve done for me, Cody?”

  “What have I done?” he asked gently.

  Brooke groped for words. “You’ve—freed me. I’ve felt like a—a prisoner inside myself for years; I don’t feel that way now. And my own mind isn’t my enemy anymore.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I love you, Cody.” Before he could respond, she added distractedly, “That’s not enough, somehow it’s not enough just to say that!”

  “I know.” He was smiling, his golden eyes darkening to sweet honey. “I feel the same way. Words aren’t enough.”

  She looked down at him, and suddenly, like the words, savoring her feelings just wasn’t enough. Her mind flew back to the night before and Cody’s stark vulnerability; he’d shown her his love, stripped bare for her a part of himself she knew no one else would ever see. Not mere words invented by man, but the raw and frenzied emotions themselves.

  No—words weren’t enough. Words would never be enough….

  Cody sat up and turned to face her on the couch, puzzled by her sudden stillness, by the distant green eyes. And then she gazed at him, and the green eyes weren’t distant anymore; they were bottomless and greener than green could ever be, and they reached out toward his soul.

  “Brooke…” he breathed, feeling a quickening, a breathless suspension of every muscle and nerve in his body.

  She touched his face as if she were blind, tracing the handsome planes and angles with fingers that quivered. Deep, deep inside her, in that wild place where fires had raged since his first touch, the flames scorched walls holding them captive, demanding release. Brooke leaned forward slowly until her lips met his, her eyes gazing into his, watching them blaze. Then her eyes drifted closed.

  And she loosed the fire.

  His arms went around her blindly, fiercely, responding to the need in himself and in her. There was no restraint, no caution or hesitation, no uncertainty. There was only desperate need, the mutual reaching for something violently, compulsively necessary to them both.

  Lips still imprisoned, Brooke dimly felt herself floating, the arms that had lifted a two-hundred-pound wolf holding her as if she weighed nothing. She tangled her fingers in his thick hair, a hunger beyond thought, beyond reason, building toward the critical point. And she gave herself up to it completely, allowing its turbulence to snap the gossamer threads of reality.

  Neither of them noticed the wolf lying on the hearth as he raised his head and watched with yellow eyes the man carry the woman from the room. And neither of them heard the almost human sigh as Phantom lowered his head again to the bearskin rug. Adjusting his splinted leg more comfortably, the wolf drifted off to sleep.

  Cody carried Brooke into her bedroom without conscious thought. The room was dimly lit by the fire he’d built only an hour before in the hearth, its flickering flames warming, casting shadows. He set her gently on her feet by the turned-down bed, his fingers going immediately to the back zipper of the caftan she’d changed into after supper.

  Brooke, her eyes still closed, felt his lips rain warm kisses over her face, her throat. Absently she stepped out of and kicked aside her slippers, going up on tiptoe to fit herself more firmly against his hard body. She heard a faint whisper of sound, felt cool air against the flesh of her back, and then the warmth of his touch was chasing away the chill.

  Frantically she found the buttons of his flannel shirt by touch alone, desperate to have no more barriers between them. Her eyes opened at last as he released her long enough to shrug the shirt off, and her own hunger doubled, tripled, erupted, as green eyes met gold.

  There was a sudden stillness, an abrupt cessation of all movement. Only eyes touched and probed; even their harsh breathing seemed to have stilled. They gazed at each other for a timeless moment, the crackle of the fire in the hearth a tame thing compared to that winging in human eyes. And then the spell shattered and they reached for each other with one mind.

  Brooke was only dimly aware of clothing falling to the floor and kicked aside, hardly conscious of being lifted again and placed on the bed. The covers were pushed aside as Cody joined her, his eyes flitting hungrily over her fire-golden body

  “Oh, God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped, the sound raw and torn from his throat. “Brooke…my Brooke….”

  Green eyes as enigmatic as those of a cat stared into his, the siren song within them again reaching for his soul, calling to him. He saw the wildness there—the unleashed, uncontrolled, soaring urgency of need stripped bare, and the breath caught in his throat harshly. “Brooke…”

  “I love you,” she whispered, her fingers touching his face again blindly. “I love you, Cody!”

  His lips hot and shaking, he kissed her hand, her shoulder, her throat. Her skin was satin beneath his touch, satin inflamed. “I love you,” he murmured jerkily, his heart beating so hard and fast that it was a drum roll inside his chest. He couldn’t stop touching her, never wanted to stop; he was aching for her.

  Brooke felt his hands caressing, learning her, and her own hands searched out and molded the rippling muscles of his back and shoulders. Feverishly, her breath coming in little gasps, she touched him and touched him because it fed the fire inside of her. And then his hands and mouth found the pointed need of her breasts, and a moan jerked from her.

  A fiery, shivering tension spread outward from some central core within her, its ripple effect sending wave after wave along her nerves. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and then she had to move because she couldn’t be still. She felt his tongue swirling erotically around the bud his mouth held captive, the starving hunger of him branding her forever.

  His caresses slid lower, lower still, lips following the fiery trail blazed by his hands, and some dim and distant part of Brooke wondered if she’d died, because, she told herself, she couldn’t be feeling this, it wasn’t possible to feel this and not die of the sheer pleasure of it. There couldn’t be more, but there was, and she wanted to beg him to stop, to never stop, because she was dying; the frantic pounding of her heart was smothering her and she was burning from head to toe.

  She heard a stranger’s breathless voice calling to him, pleading wildly, and the stranger’s body moved restlessly with a need too great to bear. His face was taut as he rose above her, another stranger because she’d never seen that face before. But it was fascinating, riveting, that face, because it held imperative need, essential hunger, and love was blazing savagely in two golden fires that threatened to consume her.

  There was a moment, a split second during which sanity lowered the flames in those eyes, when awareness sought to find gentleness in the act of possession. Brooke saw that moment, was moved by it, but the primitive woman unleashed with the fire was wildness incarnate.

  Fiercely she caught him within herself, branding him as hers, the brief shock of possession an answer to her body’s craving.

  And the moment for gentleness was gone, dissolved, consumed by rampaging need. It built within them, compelled them, drove them as moths to a flame to burn in a glorious death. They were stripped of everything but that need, their souls laid bare by it, their deepest selves revealed to each other. And they were lost…and found…and lost again….

  The firelit room might have been the eye of a hurricane, and the two shipwrecked survivors clung to each other with the breathless feeling of having gone through something no human had been meant to survive. They held each other as anchors, as lodestones. Drained, they rested together, conscious of the dimly terrifying sensation of having shared an experience too vast to ever forget.

  There were no words at first, no thoughts. Only an instinctive and overpowering wonder needing no expression. Not even sleep could claim exhausted bodies or ease stunned minds.

  And then for a
while there were murmurs not especially noteworthy for their originality or sense. Murmurs of love, murmurs using the inadequate language of words that could never express the depth of what they felt but helped them to find solid ground again. Until finally they were back, they were themselves once more, the bond between them forged in fire and cooled now to something stronger than either of them.

  “Wildcat,” Cody whispered, somehow managing to pull the covers up around them without losing his possessive hold on her.

  Brooke decided it was a compliment. “Thank you,” she murmured, wondering idly how she’d ever managed to rest all these years without the comfort of his shoulder pillowing her head.

  “I may never move again,” he added, yawning hugely.

  She traced an intricate pattern in the hair on his chest, fascinated by the way the firelight glinted off the golden strands. “We’ll starve,” she said finally, thoughtfully.

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  Silence.

  “Cody?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Will you respect me in the morning?”

  Caught in the middle of another yawn, Cody choked on a laugh. “Oh, I’ll try,” he responded, chuckling.

  “I was just wondering,” she explained.

  “Being inexperienced in these matters?” he asked politely.

  “Something like that.”

  “Mmm. Well, I’ll respect any woman who knocks me flat on my back, love,” he said, adding, “in the snow, no less.”

  “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to keep you in your place, don’t I?” he asked, aggrieved.

  Brooke wound golden hair around a finger and tugged sharply. “And just what is my place?”

  “Ouch.” He sighed. “Undiplomatic of me, wasn’t it?”

  “To say the least.”

  “Sorry. Uh—maybe I should have said—”

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “A very wise person said once that if you have to think about it, you aren’t going to answer honestly.”