by Rinelle Grey
He was. Ravenous. But not for food.
Calrian drank her in. The baggy grey pants and oversized shirt she wore hid her figure, but he could easily imagine what it was like under the clothes.
He took the plate from her and murmured his thanks. The smell wafting up from the food stirred his stomach. Perhaps he was hungry after all. Still, he didn’t even touch the food until she’d disappeared back out the door and closed it behind her.
Then he made himself focus his attention on the plate. Dragons could go for several weeks without food if necessary, but his body had undergone a huge ordeal in the last day, keeping his strength up made sense.
The food was some sort of crunchy slices, still warm from whatever had cooked them, dripping with a yellow oily substance and something sweet and red. Calrian ate it all eagerly. It was his second taste of human food, and it was as delicious as the last lot had been.
Out in the other room, he heard doors slamming. “See you this afternoon, Mum,” Rowan called out.
Then silence.
Calrian waited, holding his breath, for what seemed like an age. Then the door opened.
“Rowan’s gone. You can come out now.” Rylee hesitated for a moment. “Though if my dad turns up, can you hide?” Her face flushed a little.
“Of course,” Calrian said without hesitation.
But luckily, no one interrupted them. Rylee finished her own crispy slices of food, and then led him outside towards a strange, metal structure, glancing around nervously the whole time.
She opened a door, and waved Calrian in. “So, where are we going?”
Calrian frowned. “It doesn’t look like there’s much room to go anywhere in there?” He stared at the floor of the structure, wondering if there was a passage that lead somewhere from the bottom of it.
Then he saw the wheels at the bottom. It must move. Though it looked far too heavy to move, and there were no horses nearby to attach to it, as he’d heard humans did.
Rylee stared at him in confusion, then gave a grin. “Oh, this is a car. I guess you haven’t seen one? Get in, and I’ll show you.”
He stared at her for a few moments, but for some reason, he trusted her. Maybe because she’d come to find him against her own doubts. So he sat on the seat inside, and watched her as she sat next to him.
She did something on the other side of the protrusion in front of her, and a loud rumbling sound started. In fact, the whole structure vibrated. Then, with a jerk, it started to move.
Calrian watched in fascination as they rumbled down a path worn in the dirt, then stopped before they turned onto another path. This one was black, and looked like it was made of some sort of rock. It was too smooth to be natural.
“Which way?” Rylee asked, glancing over at him.
That was the question, wasn’t it? Everything looked so different down here on the ground. Calrian looked around, trying to get his bearings.
The great mountain rose up behind him. Ultrima’s lair. A shiver ran through him. He knew his enemy still lived, or at least his clan, since there had been one of them sleeping outside his Mesmer chamber.
Luckily, his own lair was in the opposite direction. Calrian pointed straight ahead. “That way.”
Rylee pursed her lips, then turned left, pulling onto the black road. Unfortunately, it didn’t go in the direction Calrian had pointed. In fact, it went a little further away.
Calrian frowned. “This is not the right direction.”
She turned to him with a smile. “There’s a crossroads a couple of kilometres up here, we can go north then. But a car drives better on the road. Not like a dragon, who can fly.” She gave him a lopsided grin at her last sentence, and Calrian couldn’t help grinning back.
For some reason, her acceptance of who he was, of the truth of his story, made him feel a little more confident.
She was right. As soon as they hit the black rock stuff, they sped up. Before very long at all, they were going as fast as he could fly.
Then she was slowing down again. They turned right, and this time, sped north. They went that way for quite a while, but before they were near the lair, they turned again, this time left, still away from the lair.
Calrian bit back his comments this time. She knew where she was going, right?
They drove in silence for a while, and Calrian wondered what she was thinking. Would she be glad to get rid of him? He wouldn’t blame her, he’d been nothing but trouble since he arrived. First bonding her without asking, then collapsing so she had to come and rescue him, then needing her to drive him around.
No, he wouldn’t blame her. He would be sorry to see her go though. Despite her disbelief, or perhaps because of it, he admired her determination. When she hadn’t believed his story, she’d stuck to her beliefs, and been willing to throw him out to protect her young. That had to have taken guts, because even in his human form, he was easily stronger than her.
But her disbelief hadn’t stopped her from coming to his aid. She’d been weak and hurting herself, and instead of blaming him, she’d helped him.
She was an amazing human. He knew some dragons who wouldn’t equal her.
He would be sad to say goodbye to her.
Chapter 11
“So, where exactly is this… lair… of yours?” Rylee glanced over at Calrian. He’d been pretty quiet the whole trip, and she hoped he was okay. Hoped he wasn’t going to get all weak and sick on her again. That hadn’t been pleasant.
“Do you know of a large rock that looks like a wave?” he said, his expression a little concerned.
Luckily, she knew exactly what he meant. “Sure, it’s a bit of a tourist attraction. People come from miles away to take photos of it.”
If the dragon lair was near there, how had they managed to stay hidden all this time. Perhaps they only came out at night. Calrian didn’t seem to be nocturnal though. He’d slept at night, just as she had, and been awake as the sun came up.
She took the next turn and followed the road out, pulling up in front of the wave rock where there was a gap in the trees. Then turned the engine off. “We’re here.”
A pretty pointless statement, since he could obviously see that.
Calrian stared up at the rock, at a point high up on the cliff, his eyes distant.
His normal, gorgeous, blue eyes, had changed. The pupil had elongated, and narrowed into a slit reminiscent of a cat’s eye. Rylee couldn’t help herself, she gaped. It was the first irrefutable proof she’d had that he was more than he seemed.
That reality sent a shiver down her spine, and made her a little sad that she hadn’t believed him right from the start.
In a few minutes, he’d be gone, returning to his own family, his clan as he’d called them. And she’d never see him again. She was a little sad, and not just because she hadn’t had a chance to indulge in this delicious desire that hadn’t left her for an instant since they’d touched.
Calrian was different to any man she’d ever met before. She couldn’t deny that some of that was due to the fact that he was drop dead gorgeous. But it was more than that.
He was also kind, understanding, and respectful.
He seemed to genuinely care about what she wanted, even though he barely knew her. He could have easily justified pressuring her to sleep with him, given his desperate need. But he hadn’t. He’d done the opposite, and walked out of her house without a protest when she’d told him to leave, despite what it had nearly meant for him.
He was someone special.
Calrian turned towards, her and she braced herself for his goodbye.
But his expression was worried. “They’re not there.”
Rylee glanced around, even though she already knew that she wasn’t going to see any dragons. “Well, people, humans that is, visit this site frequently. I assume they’re hiding.”
Calrian shook his head. “No, the lair is empty. I spoke to anyone who could hear me with dragon speech, and no one answered.”
Rylee frown
ed. She hadn’t heard him say anything. His mouth hadn’t even moved. “Dragon speech?”
He nodded. “Yes, dragons can communicate with each other, with anyone really, in their minds. I think you would call it… telepathy?”
She started at him, gaping. “You can… talk telepathically?”
Calrian nodded. He stared at her for a moment, and then she heard his voice, but not with her ears. He spoke directly into her mind, his voice gentle and deep. “I could not use my dragon speech until I had regained enough energy. I still can’t transform into a dragon, to fly up and inspect the lair myself, but after being close overnight, I can now use dragon speech, which requires very little magical energy.”
Rylee was aware that her mouth was hanging open and her eyes wide. But she couldn’t help herself.
If only he had been able to do that right from the beginning, then she would never have doubted him. She may have still struggled to believe, but who could doubt that someone speaking directly into your mind wasn’t completely normal?
“I… can I reply that way?”
Calrian shook his head. “Only dragons can use dragon speech,” he said, speaking out loud again. “I can speak to you, but you can’t reply.”
Rylee was a little disappointed, but not surprised. She glanced up at the cliff, then back at Calrian. “So, what are you going to do now?”
His expression grew worried again, and he also glanced at the cliff. “I would like to fly up and check the lair, see if there are any clues as to what happened, or where my clan went. But I can’t do that until I regain my full energy.” He looked back at her. “I’m afraid my plan to get out of your hair has failed.” He sounded apologetic. Troubled.
As though he was worried she would be upset.
But Rylee couldn’t help feeling selfishly glad. Not that he couldn’t find his family, she could understand his distress at that. But she was glad that he wasn’t going to disappear immediately. She put her hand on his arm, the flash of desire that coursed through her sending a shiver of anticipation through her. “You can stay with me for as long as you need.”
She didn’t want this to end. She wanted to know more about these dragons that had apparently been hiding out in Australia for goodness knew how long.
She wanted to spend more time with Calrian, even though she knew she shouldn’t.
If she’d thought Eric was hard to escape, then she suspected this dragon would be even harder. Worse, she wouldn’t even want to.
But she couldn’t make herself pull away.
Chapter 12
Calrian stared out the window as Rylee drove away from the lair, not even seeing the scenery passing by. He wasn’t sure where they were going, and he didn’t care. He felt numb. Empty.
Even the desire the Mesmer bond drove him to feel for her was only a dull ache, a shadow of the intensity it had been earlier.
All of it, everything, was overshadowed by the fact that his clan was gone. His lair was empty.
Or so all evidence indicated, anyway. The fact that he hadn’t been able to actually see inside the lair still niggled at him. He knew that if his clan had been there, they would have responded to his telepathic call, but he still couldn’t shake the fact that maybe he might have missed something. If only he’d been able to fly up there to see for himself and search for clues as to where they had gone.
Surely they must have left clues?
They wouldn’t have just abandoned him, would they? No, of course they wouldn’t. The trouble was, the only reason he could think of why they hadn’t returned for him was that they were all dead.
Rylee glanced over at him. “Are you okay?”
He had no idea how to answer her. Did she really want to know the truth?
When he didn’t respond, she asked again. “Calrian?”
He heaved a sigh. “They must all be dead.”
The car swerved slightly on the road, and she was staring at him again. “You can’t know that,” she said firmly. “Maybe… maybe they thought you were dead, and that’s why they didn’t come find you.”
Calrian shook his head. “No. That’s highly unlikely. They’d know that I was safe inside the Mesmer chamber. No enemy dragon can enter. The life magic protecting the chamber prevents it, and it was still intact. The fact that there was an enemy dragon waiting outside indicated I was still inside. Besides, even if they thought I was dead, that doesn’t explain why they aren’t at the lair. No, there’s no other explanation. They must all be dead.”
The idea that they could be gone seemed impossible. Unbelievable. To Calrian, it felt like it had been mere days since he’d last seen them all.
But it was becoming clearer that it had been far longer than the typical Mesmer sleep. Even the area around the lair had changed drastically. The trees were different, taller, bushier, and the ground had been worn away into different patterns.
He should have realised it earlier. The clues had all been right in front of him.
In his world, before he’d entered the Mesmer, Rylee wouldn’t have even been here. Dragons had moved to this continent to get away from humans, and in all his life, Calrian had only ever seen them as far away dots as he flew over them. The dragons left them alone, and they left the dragons alone, giving their lair a wide berth.
He knew very little about humans, true, but he was sure that none of them, not even those back in England, could have attained this level of technology in the short amount of time of a Mesmer sleep. The dark pathways she drove along must have taken months to build, and dragons surely would have noticed, no matter how much they’d kept to themselves.
That should have tipped him off.
Then again, he’d had a few other things to worry about… Like not dying.
He’d been so weak that he hadn’t even noticed all the differences. He’d been so focused on the Mesmer bond and convincing Rylee to believe him that he’d just ignored the strangeness of his surroundings.
That was the most damning evidence of all—Rylee’s inability to believe he was a dragon. That meant no humans had seen one for a long time. Surely his clan could not have been in hiding for so long without someone seeing them? Sure, dragons kept to themselves, but to this extent?
It occurred to him, with a sickening thud, that maybe that was why his clan was gone. Maybe they had moved to get away from humans again. But surely they wouldn’t have gone without waking him first?
The Trima dragon guarding his chamber’s entrance must have prevented them. But didn’t its presence indicate that his clan must still be somewhere close by as well? Otherwise, what was it guarding against?
No, his clan must still be around here somewhere. He just had to find them, even if he didn’t have any idea where to start.
What he needed was more information. Without that, he had no hope of figuring out what had happened.
Calrian took a deep breath and turned to Rylee. “How long have your people been here? In this area,” he clarified.
Rylee frowned, glancing over at him for a moment before turning back to the road. “The English started colonising Australia nearly two hundred years ago. Mungaloo, the nearby town, has been here for nearly a hundred years.”
A hundred years! Calrian stared at her in shock. He knew it must have been a long time just from how much things had changed, but hearing a number somehow rammed home how long it had been.
How could his clan have survived this long, especially if they were still at war with the Trima clan?
Even if he could find his clan, the reality was that every dragon he’d ever known would be dead. Dragons lived longer than humans, but not that much longer. It was a miracle that he was even here. How had he survived? He’d had no idea someone could remain in the Mesmer for that long.
“And your people have never seen a dragon before?” he clarified.
Rylee gave a half laugh, half snort. “Never,” she said with certainty. “We were completely certain dragons never existed and that all the stories about them w
ere made-up fairy tales.”
Calrian’s shoulders slumped. That did not bode well for the continued existence of his clan.
“I’m sorry,” Rylee said softly. She reached over and put a hand on his leg, and even the tingle he felt at her touch didn’t alleviate any of his pain. In fact, it made it worse. He’d not only failed his clan, he’d failed her too.
He’d been hoping to be able to release her from the Mesmer bond, let her get back on with her life, as she so clearly desired. When he’d found his clan gone, she’d said that he could stay as long as he liked, but her offer didn’t make him feel much better.
The reality was, she knew she didn’t have a choice. Neither of them did. After last night, when she’d told him to get out and both of them had weakened almost to the point of dying, they both knew that being apart wasn’t possible. They were stuck with each other. For now at least.
He needed to remember that it would not take that long for the Mesmer ritual to be complete. Then Rylee would be free, and he would be alone.
That thought sent a cold chill through him.
Rylee patted his leg again, then put her hand back on the wheel.
Distantly, Calrian recognised the area. They were nearing her home, turning from the dark, smooth road, onto the dirt one leading up to her house. The sun was high in the sky. It was nearly midday. They’d been gone for some time.
She stopped the car in the shade of a tree, and the rumbling ceased. His ears had grown used to the sound, and without it, the silence was deafening. Calrian couldn’t think of how to break it. He felt like he should say something reassuring, offer her some hope that this wouldn’t be so bad.
But he just wasn’t feeling it.
Everything felt like a disaster right now, and the uncomfortable silence seemed appropriate.
Rylee opened the door and stepped out, glancing around as though searching for something. Rowan? Calrian wasn’t sure when the boy would be back, he wasn’t even sure where he’d gone. Rylee had mentioned somewhere, but the word had been unfamiliar. All he knew was that Rylee had wanted to avoid her son knowing Calrian was still there, hadn’t she?