by Meg Ripley
She didn’t speak again. She laid there listening to the sound of his breathing, feeling the thump of his heartbeat against her cheek. And she didn’t move again until she was certain he was fast asleep.
Quietly, she slid out of bed and slipped into her clothes, ignoring the swell of emotion that constricted her throat as she looked back at him one last time. And then, hating herself for it, she whispered to him, ensuring he couldn’t follow her anytime soon, “Don’t wake up, Grant, not until Genevieve comes for you,” she said, figuring the kind woman would go looking for him in the morning when he didn’t come to the house.
And then she tiptoed out of the cabin and walked. She had no particular destination in mind, though they’d passed a town just a mile or two back on their way to Genevieve’s. From there, she’d find a way to leave the area, though she couldn’t go back to Las Vegas if she intended to keep her distance from Grant.
She’d go somewhere; somewhere she could think. A place she could hide away and figure out what she was supposed to do now. If Genevieve was right, there were no limits to what she could do now. She could will herself into any job she desired, anywhere in the world; she could add as many zeros to her bank balance as she wanted; she could even return to Asgard…if she had the slightest clue how to get there.
But therein laid the problem. In theory, and according to Genevieve, she could do anything she wanted to do, she could bend the whole world to her will, but she had absolutely no idea how to wield that power—and no desire to do so even if she did. But how much destruction could she cause in her ignorance? She had no desire to turn the world into her own personal paradise—she would have stayed with Grant if her own selfish desire was utmost on her priority list—but what if she turned it into someone’s personal hell unwittingly?
Minutes passed, and then an hour, and she continued to walk, heedless of the direction and her surroundings. It wasn’t until she heard footsteps that she was drawn outward from her inner chaos. The strides were long, definitely a man’s, but they weren’t Grant’s footsteps. She looked around, but it was late at night, only the occasional streetlamp interrupted the sheer darkness. A moment passed, and then another. The footsteps continued toward her.
Then she saw him. He was alone this time, but he advanced with a steady step. She contemplated running, but knew intuitively that he would catch up with her. So, she stood her ground, trying desperately to call up the calm that had served her so well before, but just as it began to wind its way through her body, the man changed. He grew taller, and wider, and his flesh gave way to something else. In seconds, he was no longer a man; he was…a dragon, blood red and the size of a bus.
She blinked hard, thinking it had to be her mind playing tricks on her, but when she opened her eyes, the giant beast was still there, not five yards away. He was scales and horns, but across his enormous chest, something caught her attention—a scar. Slashing diagonally across him, it ran the entire width of his chest, and something about it tickled her memory, though no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t call it to mind.
He took a thunderous step forward, and she took a feebly small, human step back. He bared his dagger-like teeth in an evil smile, and she quaked in fear as every remnant of the calm vanished into thin air.
Chapter 13
“She’s important to you,” Genevieve observed as Grant strode out of the cabin, looking up at the pitch-black sky. He had no idea how long she’d been gone. Genevieve had shown up in the cabin two minutes ago to tell him she had a terrible sense of foreboding, and when he’d looked around and hadn’t been able to find Freya, he had no doubt what had awoken Genevieve.
“Yes, she is,” he said simply and then called up the heat in his core. He needed to find her before it was too late. What the hell had she been thinking? They’d driven hundreds of miles to a place Genevieve kept off the radar to make sure she stayed safe, and she just waltzed out into the middle of the night?
He wanted to be angry, but in truth, he couldn’t be. She was reeling with shock, and rightfully so. He was still suffering from that same emotion—which was not something that happened to him often. Though, that she’d been the one to shock him didn’t surprise him entirely. She was unique in every way; he’d known that from the very start. But a goddess?
In some ways it suited her; she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen; fiery, passionate and kind. She embodied every kind of beauty there was.
But what did she think she was going to accomplish by leaving? And then it hit him—it wasn’t shock that had driven her from the Genevieve’s cabin. It was fear. Fear for him, for Ragna, for everyone she could possibly hurt with her near-unlimited abilities, particularly since she had no idea the extent of them, nor how to wield them. He’d been caught—if she regained her memory, she would be better equipped to live as what she was, but if something so terrible had happened that she’d buried it all, he didn’t want her to relive that tragedy either.
He soared high above, gliding through the air at breakneck speed, and it only took moments to find her, the scent of her wafting in the air toward him. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, but his relief fled on the next breath when he smelled the dragon who was far too close to her. It was him—the one who had attacked her.
He increased his speed, forcing his massive body to move faster, desperate to get to her. Every second felt like hours as his mind conjured every terrible thing that could happen to her.
They came into view, and white-hot rage coursed through his veins. A blood red dragon hovered over her, and he could see that there were bruises on her body. He charged through the air, and just as the dragon looked up, he crashed into him, taking them both fifty yards away from her. He slashed at the dragon as they rolled to a stop, but the red beast lashed out with his tail, attempting to slice through his unarmored abdomen.
The beast was too slow. He never made contact, and Grant grabbed hold of him, holding him by the long neck in a powerful grip, and preparing for the final blow.
“Grant, stop!” Freya screamed, and he struggled against the desire to slash the dragon to pieces and he reined in his claws.
He looked down at her, amazed that she’d recognized him; more than that, she didn’t seem the least bit fazed or frightened by him. But he couldn’t stop; he couldn’t let the evil creature live. He willed her to understand. “He has to die,” he tried to tell her with his eyes.
“Please, I need to know why. I need to understand…I need…” she was silent then and he could see the silent argument going on behind her eyes. “I want my memories back now,” she said all of a sudden in an authoritative voice, and he understood what it was she’d done. She didn’t need Genevieve to bring back her memories. She was a goddess, and everything obeyed her command—including her.
But her face crumpled in the next instant and her eyes filled with tears. Anger coursed through him anew, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. She was remembering whatever it was she’d buried, and he couldn’t fight that enemy.
“You fooled me,” she said, her voice full of hurt as she spoke to the dragon in Grant’s clutches. “You used Loki’s magic to fool me into thinking you were human.”
The dragon just looked at her with cold eyes.
“I want you in human form. Now,” she demanded, and the dragon shifted in a flash. Grant released him and he fell to the ground.
“Tell me why! What is it you wanted from me?”
“I wanted to drain you dry, Freya. I knew there was something about you the moment I saw you, and it took months to figure it out. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed every minute of it,” he said, eyeing her intimately.
It made his skin crawl to think of this beast’s hands on her, but he shut it out, knowing it was important for her to do this and his rage left unchecked would have him tearing the man apart in seconds.
“Months of dosing you to find something strong enough, and nothing, Freya,” the despicable man continued. “I’d been just about re
ady to give up. And then I got a visit one night from your friend, Loki, and he gave me this,” he said, picking up the syringe off the ground. “It smells just like etorphine, absolutely indistinguishable to anyone but a being like you. And he told me just how to use it. A large dose would knock you right out, but a smaller dose, a dose just like the one I gave you before would only paralyze you. It wore off too soon though, didn’t it?” he asked, looking down at the long scar across his chest.
He’d never seen a dragon with such a horrendous scar, and it gave him a sliver of satisfaction to know the man had been so badly injured.
She looked at him, and her eyes had grown clearer. “I didn’t know what he was,” she explained to Grant. “I thought I cared for him. I thought he was a good person. And then one night he gave me something, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t will him to stop. I couldn’t do anything. I’d never felt so helpless in all my millennia. But whatever he gave me started to wear off faster than he’d expected, and I lashed out at him with the only weapon I had…my hand. I willed my fingers to rake through him like claws, and they did.”
She was silent for a moment, fighting back a well of emotions before she could continue. He wanted to tell her to stop, that she didn’t have to tell him anything, but he understood she needed this, too.
“I’d never hurt anyone before. I had no idea what it was like to take a life. All the years I’d spent watching humans from Asgard…all the time I’d spent on Earth among them…I’d never wanted to harm them. But I had to do it and I thought I’d killed him. I ran out as fast as my drug-addled legs would move, and I never looked back.”
He’d thought when she had told him to stop, that she’d wanted to exact her revenge on the man; that she’d wanted to be the one to deal the final blow. But he could see that she wanted no part of it, that thinking she’d killed the villain once had nearly destroyed her.
But he could do it; he had no qualms about sending the vile dragon onto the next realm. He had to do it. He’d vowed to kill any man who’d touched Freya.
And he’d vowed to avenge Sonya.
The scent of the dragon had been in Sonya’s hotel room. He’d been there, and Grant understood why now. He’d been after all that Freya’s blood could have given him. And combined with Sonya’s medallion—which housed an imprint of every dragon who had ever existed—he could have called up every one of them and commanded the strongest beings on Earth.
He looked at her, once again willing her to understand what needed to be done. She stared back at him, her eyes heavy with tears, but she nodded this time, knowing that allowing him to live put too many beings at risk.
But he refused to kill the human—it wasn’t right. This time, though, he didn’t need to will her to understand. She seemed to understand perfectly.
“You’ll die as a dragon,” she said, and like before, the man morphed instantly, but the battle was over before it had begun. The blood red beast charged at him, but Grant was ready, slashing through the broad chest with a fierce swipe of his claws. The dragon fell to the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
It was over.
He reined in the fire as he strode toward her, ignoring the fallen beast, and pulling her into his arms. She was alive. She was safe. And he never wanted to let her go.
“Come home with me,” he said before she could say anything else.
“What?”
“I don’t know what it is between you and I, but I know you feel it, too. And I don’t want you thinking that anything’s changed just because you have your memory back. So…I want you to come home with me, Freya. To stay.”
“But we barely know each other. You don’t know anything about me, Grant.”
“I know you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever known, and I don’t intend to let that get away.”
She smiled, and he knew she felt exactly the same as he did—even if it was absolutely crazy. But he was a dragon…and she was a goddess…
God help anything that tried to stand in their way.
THE END
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Bearer Of Secrets
I woke up from a terrible dream only to realize that it was real -- my friend Dean, this impossibly hot shifter cowboy, is the only man I know who can understand what I'm going through. He's the only person I know who will help me escape this nightmare. I need him now more than I would have ever imagined.
Marisol
Being the daughter of a bullfighter and a former rodeo queen, I’ve seen thousands of cowboys come and go, but I’ve never laid eyes on any man as expertly skilled—or as sexy—as Dean Longstrider.
Little did I know that over the summer, I’d discover an unexpected and dangerous side of myself—and Dean is the only person I know that I can turn to for help.
Dean
Being in this business sure comes with its perks. I have more offers from ladies than I know what to do with, but thing is, none of that matters to me—I have my eye on one woman and one woman alone: Marisol. She’s a great girl, and God, when I think about what I could do with those curves...it’s enough to drive a man—or werebear—buck wild.
When Marisol told me she was in trouble this summer, I swore to do whatever it would take to keep her safe, to protect what’s mine, even if it costs me the championship—or more...
“And now, the ride you’ve all been waiting for. The final ride of the night, and folks, this is for all of the proverbial marbles, and I ain’t kidding. Now this young man, Dean Longstrider, he’s got a lot on this ride. He had the highest score on Thursday night. He had the highest score on Saturday night, and folks, if he gets a score of 92 or better, he’ll win this purse, and this purse is nothing to sneeze at. No sir, it’s not. This purse has been generously doubled by our good sponsors at Franklin’s Chevrolet and it’s up to twenty thousand semolians, and you don’t need me to tell you, that’s a lot of semolians.”
It was a lot of semolians, especially for an amateur night in Cody, Wyoming.
Marisol whipped her apron off as the event announcer, Rocky, rattled on, filling the time between the bull riders. “I’ll be right back, Mama! Dean’s about to ride.”
“Did you clean the range?”
“Yes, Mama, everything is cleaned and the money box is counted up. I’ll be right back!”
Marisol flew from her mother’s food truck and under the packed bleachers to the tall fence around the arena. The chute gates were on the opposite side and her heart jumped to her throat as she waited for the sound of the buzzer that would mark the beginning of Dean’s ride. He was going to win the purse. Everybody knew it. Nobody could ride a bull like Dean Longstrider. Not even his uncle Rory, and Rory was a legend on the pro circuit.
Marisol grew up watching young men risk their necks and their lives on the backs of raging bulls. Her father, Ernesto, was a bull fighter and had been saving the lives of those young men for over twenty years. When she asked him if he’d ever seen anybody sit a bull like Dean, Ernesto had admitted that he couldn’t think of a single cowboy. Her heart had swelled with pride for her friend as she nodded in her head in agreement.
“He’s the best,” she’d gushed. “I think he’s the greatest I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s not the b
est. Not yet. Boy still has a long way to go to prove himself.” At her crestfallen face, Ernesto had added, “But he’ll get there. He’s got the talent, anyway.”
The gate suddenly crashed open and the giant red bull leapt into the arena. It did a hard twist in mid-air and slammed to the ground with a bone-breaking thud. Its hooves barely hit the dirt before it was dancing again, jumping and twisting and kicking its hind legs out as hard as it could. Dean sat astride the bull with perfect form, his spine straight and left arm extended high over his head.
“Three...four...five…” Marisol counted under her breath, fingers clutching the chain link fence. Until she started watching Dean, she never understood how long eight seconds truly lasted. But Dean’s grip was strong, and though the bull did its best to fling him away, the buzzer sounded to the sound of the crowd roaring its approval of the ride. Marisol erupted into loud cheers, clapping and shouting Dean’s name with the rest of them.
She was so excited for Dean that it took her a moment to realize that something wasn’t right. Her father darted out and got hold of the rope around the bull’s girth, but even after the bull stopped kicking, Dean wasn’t jumping free.
“Uh oh, it looks like our cowboy is in a little bit of trouble. Let’s all give a big cheer or our bull fighter Ernie! Cheer loud and help him get Dean out of there.”
Marisol swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. The bull kicked around, giving her a view of the left side where Dean’s leg was tangled in the rope. The animal was beyond furious now, ignoring all of Ernie’s attempts to distract it while his partner, Burt, dodged forward to get Dean untangled.