“Wow. So much of this is hard to accept. Things like this just don’t happen where I am from,” she marveled.
“Sure they do. You just don’t know about them or you see them from a removed point of view on the local news, never get the entire story. Plus, there probably aren’t any dragons involved in California.”
“I suppose you could be right about all that. Perhaps I should have said that it is just something I’m not used to. It’s like some sort of medieval style soap opera. Twisted family ties and dragon slayings, children who are only half human.”
“Child,” Josh said simply.
“Excuse me?” Barb replied, too wrapped up in her thoughts to comprehend his meaning.
“Child. There is only one. Dawn is one of a kind at this point.”
“What do you mean by that?” Barb asked.
“Until Aiden was unseated, dragons were forbidden to mate with humans. That is the reason Owen never took him on. He couldn’t challenge him for leader and continue his relationship with her. Connor made the decision to do it instead. Aaron just happened to beat them to it. In fact, when they found out what he intended to do, it was the two of them that coached him in how to defeat Aiden. They were among the very few that knew Aiden’s secret.”
“What secret was that?”
“His capabilities. Aiden kept the fact that he was an ice dragon very quiet. Until after his death, I suspect the only people who knew about it were his mother, the McCords and those who were no longer around to disclose it, having been a victim to it.”
“Truly awful,” Barb muttered, still fascinated by what it must be like to live in a place like this, to grow up in such a dangerous environment with evil dragon shifters and fear of your leader.
“Yes, but all history now. He is gone and Aaron is nothing like that. Things are changing a little at a time, but they are changing,” he told her as they pulled into a parking spot along a row of pubs and shops in nearby Newry. “Shall we forget about all of this and just go have some fun for a bit?”
“Sounds perfect,” she replied happily.
Barb waited as he ran around and opened her door for him. He was such a gentleman. It was so refreshing to be around someone who was so polite and thoughtful, so different from being with men in California, where everyone was so self-involved. For all the harshness his environment seemed to offer, it also was filled with good manners and a strong sense of tradition. In many ways, they were like a group of people that had been teleported through time, from some medieval place, into modern society. It was if they had adapted to the new environment, but still held fast to the ways they had been taught in their youth. The thought made Barbara realize something, but they were at the pub entrance and it would have to wait until they were seated, hopefully with a bit of privacy, to ask.
CHAPTER 7
Settled into a small booth near the back of the pub, Barb leaned in and asked Josh the question that had come to mind as they had entered the pub.
“It just occurred to me that Albert dated the skeleton in the ground as being thousands of years old, but only in the ground a short period,” she said.
“Yes, but we know why that is,” he replied, studying her face as if he was trying to understand where she was going with the comment.
“How old are you?” she said.
“Age is just a number,” he told her.
“A high number, in your case, I’m guessing,” she responded, still leaned forward, waiting on an answer.
“Not as old as you may think. In human terms, I’m somewhere around 200 years old,” he said quietly.
“Dear God!” she exclaimed, falling back into her seat as if she had been hit with a jolt of electricity from an electric fence. Then, her face seemed perplexed again as she leaned back in to speak quietly again.
“But I got the impression that the couple in the ground were around the same age, I mean appearance wise, anyway. How could they be thousands of years old when you are only 200ish?” she asked.
“Our life cycle is a bit different than most. We age pretty much how humans would until we reach about six years of age, then there is a rapid increase in growth until we are about sixteen, what is considered the age of maturity for a dragon shifter. Basically, for about ten years, we age at double the rate of humans. It’s one hell of a rush through puberty, let me tell ya!” he said with a laugh. “After that, we begin to age more slowly again, roughly about a tenth the rate of humans. So, the couple would appear much younger than they actually were in their human form.”
“But there are more notable differences in their dragon forms?” she asked curiously.
“Yes. Think of the heavy scales as you would like tree trunks. You know how you can tell how old a tree is by the number of rings? Well, it is the same with dragon scales. You can get a rough idea from how thick they are, their color, their density. Stuff like that. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t been around a lot of them. Let’s say an alien came down to examine humans, they would have to learn how to tell the signs of aging. Same with a human learning to judge the age of a dragon. It’s not difficult, just foreign.”
“That makes sense,” she replied. “So, Dawn then. How will she age?”
“No one knows,” he laughed. “Time will tell.”
“There has never been another like her?” Barb asked, not certain what that might mean for her or her parents, for that matter.
“Not that anyone knows about. In reality, there are probably others, but it is so frowned upon that it has been kept pretty low profile in the past. With times changing, Dawn is simply the first to be a birth that no one has tried to hide from the dragon leader and the council.”
“And the village is okay with her, with what she is?” Barb asked, ever concerned for Amy and Dawn.
“For the most part. There are still some elders that think it is unacceptable, but no one who would ever try to do anything harmful as a result of mere distaste for the situation. Don’t get me wrong, there are those who will shun her for being half human when she gets older. You know, it is okay for them to look the other way, but they wouldn’t want their son dating her. It is just something Owen and Amy are going to have to prepare her for.”
“Poor Dawn,” Barb said forlornly as the server brought over their drinks.
“Don’t pity her, Barb. If the legends are true, she is going to be the most powerful dragon in our village. Humans are weak compared to dragon shifters, but somewhere in the human DNA lies a dormant gene of some sort that sits idle unless introduced to the DNA of a shifter. When the two combine to form a child such as Dawn, the inner strength of humans comes through in the process, dominating any weakness to create a dragon shifter with capabilities far exceeding even the most undiluted shifter bloodline. No one knows why, but that is what the legends say and if they are true, Dawn will have nothing to fear from anyone.”
“That doesn’t necessarily make for a happy life for her though,” Barb observed.
“No, but who among us can say we haven’t experienced some unpleasantness in our lives along the way? It makes you stronger or it makes you weaker, depending on how you choose to allow it to exist in your heart and mind,” he told her, looking so deeply into her eyes she wondered if he had some mesmerizing gimmick shifters used on mere mortals such as herself.
“Are you trying to put a spell on me?” she joked.
“Yes. Is it working?” he asked, raising a single eyebrow towards her and smirking.
“Maybe,” she replied.
“I’ll have to stop off for some more of the magic potion then. It must be wearing off a bit,” he joked.
“Nah, I don’t think it is,” Barb told him.
“I tell you what, how about we abandon all this talk of dragons and carnage in favor of a discussion about you,” he told her.
“Me? That would be a dull conversation,” she laughed.
“Oh, I find that very unlikely. I bet you are just as fascinating as I imagine you to be,” he rep
lied.
“You’ve been imagining me?” she asked, watching his green eyes sparkle in the flame of the candle on their table.
“Ever since I laid eyes on you at Aaron’s wedding reception,” he admitted. “You don’t think he sent me to help you merely by chance, do you?”
“Actually, yes I did. I thought I just struck it lucky,” she replied.
“I volunteered, very enthusiastically. He didn’t want to let me do it, said he had other things for me to do. I practically had to beg the man!” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, you did not!” she said, blushing.
“I did. Ask him. He’ll tell you.”
“But why? You hardly know me.”
“I wish I could answer that, but I’m not sure why. I just know that from the moment that I saw you for the first time, I haven’t stopped thinking about you. We only talked for a short while, but you lingered with me long after you were gone. I found myself wondering where you were and what you were doing. I could picture your long dark hair falling over your shoulders as you looked up at me with those big brown eyes of yours,” he said.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” she stammered, overwhelmed by him. If it was just a ploy to get into her pants, she couldn’t say that she really had complaint with that. She was a big girl and she knew the score. Plus, she had her suspicions that a brief fling with him might be more breathtaking than an extended romance with the man of her dreams. For a moment, she even wondered what the odds were that he might turn out to be more. She couldn’t afford to think like that. This was what it was. Mutual attraction that would hopefully end in carnal bliss.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know how much I think about you, especially now that you’ve come back. I didn’t know if you would, at least not for any length of time.”
“I’m not here for long, really. As soon as this job with Albert is finished, however all of that goes, then I’m headed back to the states.”
“I guess we will just have to make the most of the time that we have then, won’t we?”
“Yes, I suppose that is all that we can do,” she replied.
“Another drink?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so,” she said, finishing off the remnants of the one she had been working on.
Josh motioned for the server to bring over another round, his a pint of Peroni and hers, gin with tonic. For a moment, they were silent, but quickly fell back into conversation.
“Tell me about Los Angeles. I’ve never been there,” Josh said, his attempt at putting her a bit more at ease rather than making the air around them so thick with unspoken longings.
“Have you been to the states at all?” she asked.
“Yes, a bit, but only the Eastern Seaboard. I’ve been to New York and Maine,” he told her.
“Quite different from the West Coast. We are far more laid back than the bustling city. Don’t get me wrong, Los Angeles is thriving with business, but it’s different than New York. There, it’s all business and finance - important people with big money to take or make. Los Angeles is more about art and culture. New Yorkers would argue that if you asked them, but we have our own style. We’re unique.”
“Sounds like a place I’ll need to visit at some point,” he said.
“You should. You would love it there,” she replied.
“Is that an invitation?” he asked, watching her lips intently.
“It might be,” she told him, unwilling to back down.
“I will pencil it in on my calendar. Of course, who knows, by this time next week you may be wishing you’d never lain eyes on me.”
“Now, why would I wish a thing like that?” she cooed at him.
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to get too cocky,” he replied.
“I don’t think you can help yourself. Isn’t that sort of in your nature?”
“To an extent,” he laughed.
“What about you then? I mean, I know about where you’re from, but I don’t know very much about you personally. Do you enjoy being a member of the Dragon Guard?”
“Not much to tell. I grew up here in this village. I showed exceptional talents in the strength and agility skills they teach us. So, as soon as I turned sixteen, which is the legal age of adulthood in the village, I was invited to join Aiden’s guard.”
“And you did? Knowing what sort of man he was?”
“I didn’t know it, not back then. There were those in the village that didn’t think he was such a great leader, but no one knew him to be the heinous creature he turned out to be. So, yes, I joined. I felt honored to be asked, as it was a very selective position.”
“But you betrayed him. You helped in bringing him down in the end,” Barb said, sipping her drink.
“Yes, I saw just how much of a monster he was,” he told her.
“After finding out what he did to the McCord’s father?” she asked.
“No, before finding out. He hurt a member of my family very badly. She is dead because of him. My brother and I were working on a plan to take him down ourselves, but then Aaron came along and the McCord brothers assisted. We all worked together to give Aaron every advantage in the fight without breaking any rules, without making it an unfair bid for leadership.”
“Who did Aiden harm in your family?” she asked, her gaze soft as she looked at him. His pain was evident on his face as he had spoken even the vague recollection of what had turned him away from being a faithful servant to Aiden.
“Another time, Barb. How about we don’t spoil any more of our evening discussing the violent politics of my village. I’d much rather know about you. What do you like to do when you aren’t out digging up bones?”
“Honestly, it is rare that I’m not. Even when I’m not traveling to a dig somewhere halfway around the world, I’m involved in local social experiments or endeavors. Social work and anthropology can go hand in hand in many cases. I study the habits of people and their environments, how each affects the other. Things like that,” she told him.
“So, you are a workaholic then?” He frowned.
“Only because I have nothing better to do,” she replied, looking downward for a moment as she realized the weight of that admission.
Josh reached outward and put his hand under her chin, lifting her face back upward to face him again. He was smiling knowingly as he spoke to her in a soft, kind voice that sounded almost angelic to her in that moment.
“How about, just for tonight, we find something better to do together?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied simply, her heart racing.
Josh paid their tab and walked her out to the car. They drove in silence back toward the village. Barb felt as nervous as a cat, just thinking about spending a night with him, with anyone, for that matter. It had been so long since Garth had left her and she had felt so crushed by it all. Even if this was only for tonight, she needed it. She needed to be held and told she was beautiful by this handsome stranger. She needed to feel his strong arms wrapped around her, their bodies intertwined in a late tryst. This was just a moment and she was going to live it to its fullest.
CHAPTER 8
They practically fell into the front door of Josh’s house once they arrived, already all over one another as they struggled with the lock. Their combined weight pushing against the door, sent them flying over the threshold, entangled in one another’s limbs. Fortunately, Josh grabbed the door frame and broke their fall before kicking the door shut, and scooping her up in his arms. He carried her to the bed and set her down.
His breath fluttered across her ear, ticklish and heated, as he reached his hand out to touch her cheek. Bending his head forward, he kissed her. It was soft at first, much softer than she had expected given the height of the passion that had already built up between them. Wrapping her arms around him, she felt the passion in him build, her fire returned by his own. He pulled her against him, her body flush with his own.
The bulge of his erection
pushed heavily into her thigh as he tangled his hands into her hair, hesitating there while kissing her before slowly moving them down her sides, roaming across her body. They slipped gently across her breasts before drifting farther down to caress her sides. A gasp escaped as he reached behind and grasped her backside firmly, pulling her onto the bed and crawling into it with her, a naughty smile adorning his face. Barb wanted him desperately.
“Did you know that this little dress you have on is incredibly easy to remove?” he said, one of the straps twirled around his finger.
Barb smirked at him, “Is that a fact?”
He grinned devilishly as he grasped the shoulder straps and slid them down, revealing her bare breasts. His eyes looked appreciatively at them before drifting back up to meet her gaze. His hand moved to fondle her left breast as he leaned in and kissed her lips, brushing across them softly. Finding their way to her collarbone, he suckled at her shoulder, moving downward to her nipple and sucking it in. A moan escaped her lips as his remaining hand found its way beneath her dress.
His fingers brushed across her hot center through the thin, silk underwear she wore. She could feel the entirety of her body quivering as he touched her in places where no one had dwelled in some time now. His mouth continuing to drift downward, he planted featherlike kisses across her flat abdomen. A shiver of anticipation skated through her body as he reached her hips. Instinctively, she raised them, allowing him to slip her dress the rest of the way from her body. He wasted no time in doing so, letting it slip to the floor by the bed.
“God, you are so beautiful,” he breathed against her bare skin as he drifted farther down, finally reaching the damp spot he had created between her legs. He hesitated there for a moment, smirking upward from between her legs as he began to pull them downward. Once again, a gasp escaped her lips almost involuntarily, her body skipping her faculties and expressing its pleasure directly.
Desired by a Dragon: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Exiled Dragons Book 3) Page 5