Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “It’s beautiful,” Dhara murmured.

  He eased back just enough to look down at her face, trying to see what she was looking at, but seeing instead that her eyes were closed. “What’s beautiful?”

  “The ocean,” she said, not opening her eyes. “Sometimes, when you hold me, I feel like I’m soaring over the ocean. I can see it below me. I can feel the wind. The open air. It’s amazing.”

  Kean froze, his heart almost coming to a stop in his chest. She might not realize it, but she was accessing his thoughts, catching glimpses of his memories and experiences. It was commonplace for someone who was affected or possessed by a Jinn spirit, and it was what Kean was most fearful of. If that power continued to grow in Dhara, smart as she was, it would not be long before she realized that what she was seeing and connected it with the fact that he had told her he was paranormal.

  It was unlikely that her mind would jump to dragons, but she would still know too much. What she knew already put both of their lives in danger, and if she began to see more of what she was never supposed to know, it could spell both of their downfalls. If there was a risk of that happening, then it was wildly irresponsible for him to stay around her, and yet he could hardly abandon her at her worst hour of need. More than that, he didn’t want to.

  “Do you see anything else?” he asked, not letting his voice betray any of his concern as he stroked her hair.

  “Something in the distance. Something flying. But mostly just water and sky. It’s so peaceful.”

  Kean looked up at the clear sky, knowing that what she saw in the distance would be another dragon. One of his clan. Ronan, Eamon, Moira, or Siobhan. They flew with him, and if she was seeing his memories of soaring in his dragon form, then she would eventually see one of his clan in those memories.

  It was impossible for him to comprehend, but if he was going to stay with her, he had to accept that there was every chance that she was going to learn his deepest, most guarded secret. His dragon form. His true nature. His manifestation of a curse delivered to his people long ago—one that they had turned into a power they could control.

  If—when—that happened, it would change absolutely everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dhara

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  Kean leaned forward in his office chair, reaching across his desk to take her hand. “Dhara, we don’t have many other choices at this point, do we? Think about what happened to you this morning. Do you ever want to go through that again?”

  Of course, she didn’t. It had been the most horrifying experience of her life. But going to a mystic? That went against every instinct she had. Even as a child, she had never believed in anything that was mystical in nature. She had been working equations and conducting makeshift experiments at nine years old, and she had worn a lab coat to her eleventh birthday party. It was impossible to deny that the paranormal had infiltrated her world and forced her to accept a new version of reality, but the concept of actively seeking out the help of a mystic—a person whose power was utterly intangible and incomprehensible—was difficult for Dhara to swallow.

  “How do you even know a mystic?” Dhara asked, deflecting the question. “I mean, really—are they in the Yellow Pages? Do we get a third reading for free if we bring in two people at once?”

  Kean gave her a look. “The mystic I know is a personal friend. And she would never be disrespectful about the work you do studying the spread of disease.”

  She immediately felt bad, groaning as she leaned forward and put her head in her hands. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, Kean.”

  “I know it’s a hard adjustment for you to make,” he said, no reprimand in his voice. “But after all you’ve been through, is it so difficult to take this next step?”

  “Yes, because everything else has happened to me outside of my control. This means actually actively seeking out mystical help, and I just—” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so she didn’t, staring down at her feet instead.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even knowing that I’m paranormal too?”

  That was a low blow, considering she was choosing to still be around him, even knowing that. Dhara sighed, knowing that it would be wrong to ignore the perfectly logical argument he was hinting at. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll consult a mystic.”

  “That’s my girl,” Kean said, reaching for his phone.

  An unbidden warmth stole over Dhara as she replayed his words in her head while he made the necessary phone call. That’s my girl.She didn’t know why the words felt like they fit her perfectly, because if she looked at the situation logically, ever since she had met Kean, her life had gone from strange to downright terrifyingly weird. That should be enough to make her run for the hills as soon as he helped her get rid of whatever forces were trying to ruin her life, but she knew already that she wouldn’t want to. There was something about him—something that went beyond his rugged good looks and the incredible attraction between them—that made him different from anyone else she had ever met.

  It wasn’t as though Dhara had never been in love before. She had—or at least, it had seemed so, even if after the relationship had ended, she hadn’t been as sure. But she had been with the same person all through her graduate years in California, and they had planned a life together. Lived together. Dreamed together. When she had found him in bed with one of her professors though, it had all ended, and once it was over, looking back, she wondered if it could have been true love if it was so easy for her to walk away. Three years down the drain, and hardly a tear shed.

  Now, after less than a week, she couldn’t imagine her life without Kean in it, even if it wasn’t the kind of life she had ever imagined for herself.

  “Dhara?”

  Kean’s voice brought her back from the mental reverie she had sunk into, and she looked over at him to find that he was off the phone and waiting for her to respond to something she hadn’t heard.

  “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “Are you ready? We’re going to go meet with her now.”

  “Now?” Dhara instinctively froze up, wanting more time to adjust to the idea, however impractical that was. “It has to be now?”

  Kean got up from his chair and rounded his desk, perching on the edge of it to look down at her. “I have to know that you’re committed to doing this,” he told her, his voice gentle but serious. “If I take you to her and she tries to help you, but you’re blocking her or she feels you’ve disrespected her …there are consequences to that kind of thing in her world. She is someone to be revered.”

  That hadn’t occurred to her, and she suddenly realized that he was right. Even knowing nothing about the spirit world, she instinctively understood that an older, wise mystic was someone who you didn’t want to cross. Just watching Disney movies could tell her that much. She bit her lip, realizing that she was going to have to go all in or jump all the way out, and there was only one real choice.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll treat her with as much respect as I would give the top scientist in my field.”

  Kean smiled down at her, and that alone was reward for her decision. “Thank you,” he said, holding his hand out for hers. “Come on. Let’s get going. There’s supposed to be a storm coming in off of the sea today, and I don’t want that to keep us from getting to her. She’s almost two hours away, out in the middle of nowhere.”

  Taking his hand, Dhara stood up and walked out of the office with him, heading for the front door. As they entered the main lobby of the offices though, she looked up to see Eamon standing there looking out the front window, his hands behind his back, as he stared out at the darkening sky. When he heard them approach, he turned, and his eyes met hers. Dhara blinked in surprise, reading a warning in his gaze that she didn’t understand.

  Kean must have understood it too, because he tugged her ever so slightly closer to him as he greeted his friend. �
�Eamon.”

  Eamon nodded at him. His expression wasn’t unfriendly, but it was guarded, and something passed between the two men that felt to Dhara like an entire conversation exchanged in a mere glance. There was an understanding between them, but it wasn’t an easy one.

  “Ronan is on his way back,” Eamon said, responding to a question Kean hadn’t asked.

  “Good,” Kean said, nodding back at Eamon. “Tell him I want to talk with him soon. Is he flying back commercial or private?”

  “Private.”

  Kean nodded again. “Then he won’t be back until after dark.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll call him after sunset then.”

  Kean nudged her, and Dhara hurried toward the door, Kean following close behind her. As soon as they were out of Eamon’s earshot, Dhara turned to Kean. “You guys have a private plane?”

  “No.”

  “But you said—”

  He opened the passenger-side door for her, their eyes connecting. “We don’t have a private plane.”

  Dhara sensed that he didn’t want her to ask anything further, so she got into the car and he closed the door behind her. But as he rounded to his side of the car and got in, it clicked in her mind. She had been experiencing visions of flying over the sea, wind rushing past her, and the world spread out down below her. They were glimpses of Kean’s memories, and she hadn’t realized it. That was why he was so nervous about her having the ability to pick up on people’s thoughts—it would give her too much information about him.

  The car started up, and Kean pulled out on to the main road, but Dhara hardly noticed. She was too busy sitting with her new realizations, trying to figure out how she felt about them—if she could even believe them. It was impossible to comprehend, but it must be true. It was the only thing that put all of the pieces together. The flying…the private plane that they didn’t have…the paranormal part of Kean’s life that he was so desperate to keep from her.

  Kean and his friends—they were birds!

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kean

  The sky opened up about halfway through their drive out of Boston, and the torrential downpour that followed made it almost impossible to see as he got further and further out of town, driving through forestation so thick that there was just a dirt road beneath his tires, the mud growing heavier around his tires with each passing second. Dhara, beside him, was quiet, and Kean didn’t press her to talk, instead concentrating all of his energyon driving the car. It was easier anyway, with so many things that he wanted to avoid thinking or talking about.

  Eamon’s guarded demeanor, for instance, or Ronan’s impending return that could spell out the first conflict amongst the five remaining active members of Boston’s Celtic Dragon Clan.

  “I saw a sign for Salem before we turned off the main road,” Dhara said, breaking the silence in the car after more than an hour had passed. “Salem, Massachusetts.” She looked over at him. “Witch trials.”

  He glanced over at her briefly, but then turned his eyes back to the road. “That’s right. 1692 wasn’t a great year to be in this area.”

  “But if…” she trailed off, as though unsure whether she really wanted to ask the question.

  Kean knew what the question was though. “Yes, some of the women—some—were actual witches.”

  Dhara stared out the window, clearly unsure as to what to do with that information. “Actual witches.”

  “Yes, some of those who were identified early. It did become a witch hunt, with a lot of innocent women getting caught up in the middle of it,” Kean told her. “But there were a few actual witches in the bunch—women who coped with the miseries of Puritan life by using their powers to help promote justice. That’s how they would have seen it, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Dhara murmured.

  “Ironically, there were more male witches than female witches in Salem,” Kean said, increasing the speed on his wiper blades as the rain grew heavier. It was now almost impossible for him to see, even with his incredible eyesight. “But most people associated being a witch with being female. An overly-powerful, aggressive female.”

  She looked over at him finally. “Would I have been considered a witch?”

  “Probably,” he told her, nodding. “A woman of your intellect and independence would not have gone over well in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts.”

  “So, then—Kean, watch out!!” Dhara grabbed for the armrest beside her as lightning cracked against a tree, sending branches tumbling down in front of their car.

  Kean had to slam on the brakes, his knuckles white as he gripped the wheel and muscled the car into staying on the road. It wanted to slip and slide in the mud, but Kean was stronger than the car’s mechanism, and it merely shuddered to a stop, heaving a mechanical sigh as it resigned itself to his control.

  “Are you okay?” Kean asked Dhara, once the car was still. His own heart was pounding, not because the branches would have hurt him had they fallen directly onto the car, but because Dhara could have been seriously injured by them.

  “Fine,” she said, nodding. “But…maybe we need to wait for this storm to pass. It’s really wicked out there.”

  Kean killed the car’s engine, pocketing the keys. “We don’t have much of a choice at the moment. Unless I go out there and haul the branches away.”

  “They’re too big, Kean. You’ll get hurt.”

  He almost smiled. Under other circumstances, he would have. If only she knew just how strong he was. He could leave the branches where they were and lift the car over them, if she preferred. She wouldn’t even have to undo her seatbelt. Instead, he just settled back in his seat. “I don’t think there will be anyone trying to get around us. Let’s see if the rain eases up here a little, then go from there.”

  “Will the mystic be angry if we’re late?”

  This time he did smile, just a bit. “She’ll know what’s happened.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Her name is Leitheia, by the way.”

  Dhara turned in her seat, facing him more directly as she leaned up against the window of the passenger-side door. “And you’ve known her for a long time?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Not closely. We’re not great friends. But …” he trailed off, realizing that he was about to say that she had been of particular help to his father on a number of occasions, on different cases. He didn’t know what it was about Dhara, but she made it hard for him to keep secrets—secrets that he had trained his whole life to keep.

  “But what?”

  “My parents knew her,” Kean said, keeping it vague. Then he changed the subject. “How are you feeling?”

  “Feeling?”

  “After this morning.”

  “Oh.” Dhara nodded, looking down at her hands. “Fine, I suppose. It seems like a dream—like something that couldn’t have happened to me.”

  “But you don’t feel any side effects? Lingering symptoms?”

  She thought about it for a long moment before she answered. “I feel…like I’m drifting. Like I’m just not quite myself. I don’t know if it’s in my head or not, just because I know that there’s some sort of spirit attached to me. I feel this sensation of being watched or being on the cusp of something. But it could just be that my nerves are so high.”

  He nodded. “It could be. But it’s possible that you’re also feeling the presence of the spirit, even if it’s not acting on you at the moment.”

  Dhara looked up at him, and their eyes connected. There was something in her gaze that he didn’t understand, and he tilted his head, studying her. “Ask me,” he finally said. “There’s a question in your eyes.”

  “Do you fly private?”

  For a moment, he didn’t understand the question, even though it was a term that he and the others often used amongst themselves. Flying commercial meant taking an airplane somewhere, and flying private meant that they would transition into their dragon forms and fly high enough above the clouds t
hat no one would see them. From Dhara’s lips though, the question seemed nonsensical.

  Then realization set in, and he knew that she was beginning to piece it all together.

  “Dhara…”

  “No, I shouldn’t have asked,” she said, holding up a hand. “You told me you couldn’t talk about it. I’m trying to respect that.”

  “If it only involved me, it would be different,” he told her quietly. “If it were only my secret.”

  “But it’s theirs too.”

  He nodded as lightning flashed all around them again, lighting up the trees. “Yes, and they’re not happy that you know as much as you do. I don’t know how I’m going to work all of that out, honestly. Ronan, Eamon, Moira, Siobhan…they’re family to me. They’re my brothers and sisters. We rarely argue, and we’ve always, always been together. This is the first time that I’ve ever even thought to risk that.”

  Her eyes dropped down to her hands, her lovely dark lashes fanning out against her cheeks. “Because of me.”

  Her voice was so soft and her face so beautiful that it made Kean’s heart ache with longing. He wanted to reach for her, pull her across the car into his arms, and cover her mouth with his. If they were going to be stuck in a torrential downpour in the middle of a forest, he wanted to be making love to her while they were there. “Yes,” he said honestly. “Because of how I feel about you.”

  “Why do you feel that way?”

  “Why do you feel the way you do about me?”

  Her eyes lifted back up to his, making her all that much more beautiful. “I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “For me either.” He sighed, leaning toward her and cupping the back of her head in his hand as he pulled her to him, brushing his lips against hers. “Dhara…”