by Alisha Basso
And human lives were so fleeting, any conflicts with them weren’t worth bothering about.
Sunshine beamed down on Jin, showering her with a brilliant white light that sapped away the color of her skin and her clothes. For a moment, she looked ghostly pale. Not quite real.
Inside Noah’s mind, an image appeared from the past. A golden dragon curled up in her cave, looking outward, the day he’d packed up his few treasures...
He’d left without saying a word. Not looking back.
Now she’d returned to his life, but nothing was the same. They were not the dragons they’d been before this. The years had transformed them. Their human bodies had changed them in many ways. If they had remained in their dragon forms, they would be dead. There was no place for dragons in this world anymore.
Despite all this, the fire-breathing dragon inside him was just sleeping. And deep, deep down, he felt it stirring. The possibility of danger was doing this, poking that sleeping part of him, whispering, Wake up. Wake up. Wake the hell up.
And inside his belly, a tiny spark lit up...
Chapter 15
“Look what I found.” Lila’s voice rang out just as Jin was nodding off in the sun’s rays, still sitting on the rug facing the baby.
“What?” Jin asked, hearing the sleepiness in her voice.
“I did another Internet search for Willowby,” Lila said from the couch. “I found a C. Willowby, and I’m sure it’s the same guy. He’s a former champion chess player and mathematician. He does something with video games.”
Jin got up. Her butt was getting numb. She’d been sitting on the rug too long.
“That doesn’t sound dangerous to me.”
“I think it shows that he’s addicted. And look.” Lila scrambled off the couch and stuck her tablet in front of Jin so she could see the monitor. “What strikes you first about his games?”
Jin stared at the dragons on each image.
“See?” Lila demanded. “He’s obsessed with dragons.”
“He’s a half dragon,” Jin said, her voice calm, because it was obvious that Lila had trust issues with men. “He wants to claim his heritage, and I think that’s logical.”
“Logical for him to stalk you?” Lila asked.
“He didn’t stalk me at my home.” Jin frowned. He had come to every event the winery had opened to the public. Other neighbors had also attended every one. The difference was that they didn’t stare hungrily at her in a way that made her shiver then and now.
“Probably because he’s too smart for that,” Lila said. “You lived on a big wine-growing estate. He’s not stupid.”
“Of course not. He’s a dragon. And I’m not sure if he was stalking me or if he was trying to change my mind about him. Don’t human men call up women and try to go out with them?”
A sound came from Noah in his bedroom that might have been a chuckle.
Lila turned her head toward the chuckle. If her gaze had laser power, there would be a hole through the walls back to their bedroom.
She swiveled back to Jin. “Look closer at these games.” She tapped her fingernail over one digital cover. “Especially this one.”
Jin leaned forward, though Lila was obviously obsessed. The dragon on the picture was golden. Like she’d been. She noticed that first and the title second.
How to Kill a Dragon.
She jerked back, suddenly cold.
“Are you taking this seriously now?” Lila asked.
Jin turned her gaze away from Lila. “I’ve always taken the possibility seriously. That’s why I snuck away like a thief in the early-morning hours. I wish for sure that I knew the truth.”
Lila stared at her with sympathetic eyes, and Jin shrugged.
“It’s possible that he harbors animosity toward dragons,” she said. “Or it could be that killing things is popular in these kinds of games, and he’s just in it for the money.”
“Or it could be,” Noah said, walking into the living room, his deep voice similar in tone to his tenor sax, “that we should keep an open mind and, as one human president said, ‘carry a big stick.’”
“Real funny.” Lila narrowed her eyes at Noah. From the way she said real funny, Jin could tell it wasn’t funny at all.
Jin sighed. She missed her peace and quiet, but then she recalled that with a baby, her days of peace and quiet were done for at least the next twenty years or more.
No one knew as much as she did how quickly twenty years would whiz by.
Though time would crawl until Hamish would be here.
And sometime soon, they would see—or not see—Claude. If they did and his intentions were evil, she would discover that and would be glad that Lila was concerned about it. Glad that she was not alone.
Or she would be sorry that she had involved them.
Sorry that she brought them into danger.
The beginning of heat singed her belly, and she pressed her hands over her belly that wasn’t quite flat yet.
Or Claude would never find her, and that would be that.
She sat straight, sending soothing thoughts to her heated belly. What mattered right now was that Noah was in love with Lila, and Jin had witnessed enough human family drama to know that if you wanted to be friends with your son, you had better not call his lover paranoid.
So she smiled and said she needed a nap, and she appreciated Lila’s concern. To seal the deal, she leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek, though she was not a cheek kisser.
As she left, she heard Lila say, “Your mother likes me!”
A small warmth glowed inside Jin’s chest, and she admitted to herself that even a dragon mama liked to be appreciated.
“I hope she’s taking the threat seriously,” Noah said. “To sell games that celebrate the death of dragons, this creep very likely harbors anger toward his dragon mother for leaving.”
“Like you did?” Lila whispered. “Aw, honey.”
Jin couldn’t stop her indrawn breath.
He glanced sideways, where she stood in the hallway, frozen for a minute that seemed to stretch too long.
He stepped toward the hall.
Before he could say anything, she turned and ran.
* * *
Jin’s stricken expression made him hurry after her. “Jin!” he called.
“I’m going to take a nap.” Her voice was thicker than usual, and she didn’t turn back, but he saw her stumble. She caught her balance then turned into the spare room.
He slowed and stopped. Sensing that someone was looking at him, he turned and saw Lila standing in the hallway.
“You’re not going after her,” she said, her tone flat.
“I didn’t say anything bad about her. I never blamed her for telling me to leave. What happened between us was the dragon way.”
“But you’re not a dragon anymore. Not fully.”
He closed his eyes. And the hurt he’d felt so long ago—so long ago that only a dragon would remember it—rushed back with all the agony of emotion. At the time, he’d understood that he couldn’t stay with her. Of course he’d understood. But still...
It hadn’t been an easy transition. To be alone every day and every night. Week after week. Month after month. Stretching into centuries...
But he’d never blamed his mother. Never.
“When I played my music,” he said, needing to make Lila understand, “I was better. But I wasn’t always playing.” He held out his hands to her, palms up. “I was alone for many years.”
“How long?” Her features pinched in sorrow for him.
“Until you.” He took a step toward her. “Until you.”
Then she was in his arms, and he held her tightly, and her arms were around him, holding him just as fiercely. As if she never wanted to let him go.
“As long as I live,” she whispered, “I promise, you’ll never be alone again.”
It was another few moments before he eased his hold on her. If his mother weren’t in the bedroom next to theirs
, he would have taken her to the bedroom.
Or the kitchen.
Or the living room.
Or any room at all.
But his mother would be here for a short time, and he took a deep breath, then put his hand on her cheek and kissed her. Tasting her warmth, her passion, her love.
And with that to hold him, he finally stepped back.
He was a man of addictions, with his music and his shiny objects, but what he was mostly addicted to was this blonde woman who looked at him with love. Who would kill for him. Who would never leave him.
As he took another step back, a sound like something breaking came from the living room, followed by a plaintive meow, and from the spare bedroom came his mother’s gasp.
He wheeled around and headed to the living room as his mother rushed after him. Lila poked her head out of the kitchen but waited for them to pass her. The noise had sounded like a giant crack, and he was thinking it was either one of his treasures or the egg.
For the first time in his life, he was hoping it was one of his treasures.
Chapter 16
When Lila reached the living room, Noah was lifting the egg out of the cooler while his mother knelt next to him and held the cooler down.
“I’ll hold it,” he said.
“I’m fine,” Jin said.
Before this, Lila had wondered if Noah’s stubbornness was a man trait or a dragon trait. Now she was pretty sure it was hereditary.
Another reason not to have a child that might or not be a dragon.
But sometimes reasons that should make sense to her brain didn’t make sense to her heart.
She brought her wandering attention back to Noah and Jin. The egg cleared the cooler, and she ran to the other side of the cooler to help Jin carry it off to the side so Noah could set the egg down.
Jin rushed back to the rug, where the egg wobbled. Lila gazed at the egg, and the jagged crack across the top made her wince.
“Shouldn’t you keep it in the cooler?” she asked as the wobbling slowed and then ceased.
Jin, crouching in front of the egg, raised her chin, her displeasure clear. “My child is not going to be born in a cooler like a case of beer.”
Lila refrained from asking if Jin would prefer a wine cask. “What now?”
“Now we wait.” Noah settled onto his lounge chair.
Lila sighed. Waiting was not on her Favorite Things list. “Do you think it’s going to happen soon?”
Noah raised one eyebrow at Jin. “Mother?”
She took her gaze off the egg with obvious reluctance. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t even have a ballpark figure?” he asked. “Tonight? Tomorrow? Two weeks from now?”
“Probably before two weeks.” She twisted her mouth and her jaw. “You have to understand that the last time I had a baby, the weather was hotter and moister. Our elevation was much higher. The situation was completely different. With you, I certainly never needed an incubator.”
“I’d better prepare for anything.” Lila stood, the queen of preparation. “What do baby dragons eat?”
“Meat,” Jin said promptly.
“Any special kind?”
“Birds.” Jin glanced out the window, as if she were looking for a meaty one, then she turned her gaze back to Lila. “Rodents will do, too.”
“Fish,” Noah said.
“Worms?” Lila asked.
Both Noah’s and Jin’s expressions showed disgust.
“I’ll go to the store,” Lila said. “What about chicken?”
“Chicken will do.” Jin gave her a glance. “Live ones are best.”
She stepped back, and Jin chuckled and Noah grinned. They looked at each other ... and immediately turned back to Lila, their smiles gone.
Lila wanted to bang their heads together. Why would a mother and son be so tense around each other? Tiptoeing around each other as if afraid to say the wrong thing.
Not that her relationship with her mother had been better...
“It’s better if you buy a whole one,” Jin said. “There’s less chance of bacteria than in a cut-up chicken. And no antibiotics, hormones, or additives.”
Lila nodded. The baby would be eating healthier than she did. “So, I should look for meat or fish or a whole chicken. Anything else?”
“Chocolate,” Jin said. “Dark chocolate.”
“I’m going to guess that’s for you.”
“Not for the baby,” Jin said in all seriousness.
Lila looked at Noah, and he smiled slightly at her, affection on his face. “Anything for you?” she asked.
“Brandy.”
She nodded and headed to the bedroom to get her purse. Brandy and chocolate. Both of those sounded just about right to her.
Though with the possibility of a half dragon, half man coming after them, perhaps she should stick to chocolate.
Familiar footsteps were coming down the hall after her, and she looped her purse strap over her shoulder and waited for Noah. He stepped into the bedroom, put his arms around her, and pulled her against him. She was on the tall side for a woman, but she stretched up to put her head on his shoulder.
It felt like coming home.
They remained like that for moments, and his body relaxed, his breathing more even, his heartbeat slowed. He released her slowly, then stepped back.
“Talk to your mother while I’m at the store,” she said.
“I don’t want to.”
“No one wants to have that talk.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of her mother, her heart clenching. Taking a long breath, she opened her eyes again. Keeping her voice low, she said, “I wish my mother were here. I would tell her I love her—and then I would ask why she stayed with him.”
Even thinking of her stepfather, after all this time, made her stomach twist with sickness. Made her want to smash something.
Noah put his hand to the side of her face, barely touching her. She leaned her cheek into his palm and long fingers. Like a dog, she thought. But a dog who only did this with someone she trusted wholly.
“Perhaps she had no choice,” he said.
“There’s always a choice.” She lifted her chin from his curved palm, hearing the harshness in her voice. “She should have left the first time he hit her. It’s what every woman should do.”
“They’re not all as strong as you.”
“They should be.” The words came from her gut.
What had happened to her mother should never happen to anyone.
“You have to forgive her,” he said, as if he could read her mind. As if he knew that though she hated her stepfather, in a cold and vicious way, she was angry at her mother in a way that twisted her stomach and rose up to her throat.
Tears heated her eyes. She stepped around him, headed down the hall, past the living room without looking at Jin or the egg, and headed out the door to buy food for a dragon baby.
It wasn’t in her nature to be as forgiving as Noah. After all, she was human.
Chapter 17
For moments after Lila left, Noah sat in silence, as did Jin.
His thoughts were with Lila. There was an ache inside him to be with her instead of here with his silent mother, watching a giant-sized egg with a zigzag crack on the top.
He’d seen how upset Lila was, and though she was shopping for meat instead of brooding, she needed comfort, and he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and just hold—
“I was wrong to tell you to leave.” The words were so low that at first it sounded to Noah as if they came from outside. Perhaps someone at the bar talking, the words seeping through two sets of walls.
But it was too early to be at the bar, and unless the patrons were shouting or singing loudly, he wouldn’t hear them. Only the music.
So he looked to his right, to the only person it could be. And sure enough, his mother was watching him with her lips pressed together in tension.
He didn’t reply for a moment, and she didn’t say anything
more. There was no rush, and the shared silence brought a kind of peace to him. It brought him back to those sunny days when they could take the time to ponder what was said and what to reply back. Sometimes taking a full day to say one sentence. Just to make sure the words and the visions came out sensibly.
But he was used to the human way now, and humans had time limits for everything, like the stamped time on canned goods or packaged meat in a store. And time limits where either they talked ... or it was too late to talk.
So he took a deep breath and said, “It was the dragon way.”
She paused before answering, and while she did, he looked at the egg again.
Was it wobbling? Very slightly?
He closed his eyes, then opened them.
No, it was standing still.
“I missed you when you were gone,” she said.
He didn’t reply.
“I knew where you were living and would sometimes watch you from a distance.”
Still staring at the egg, he wondered why he’d never caught her watching him.
Perhaps, though, if you didn’t expect to be watched, you wouldn’t look for the watcher.
“I followed you to Wales.”
Wales. He twisted to gaze at her. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“I saw what you were doing. Watching the piper and following the girl. Changing into a man for her.” She paused for a long moment before talking again. “I didn’t want to hinder you.”
“Were you concerned?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. Yet even with her concern, she still hadn’t said anything. Still hadn’t interfered. Still had stayed away for all these centuries—
Until now.
And he understood. After all, he had avoided saying anything personal to her. Indeed, most of the questions Jin had been asked in his home had come from Lila. Questions were the human way. Silence was the dragon way.
He got to his feet, then trod down the hall toward his bedroom, not saying anything.