by Bianca James
A quick wipe with disinfectant cleared the dried blood, but beneath that, there was no cut. Not even the tiniest scratch. Yet the blood all over her order pad and the blood red cotton ball she held in her hand told a totally different story.
Something weird was going on, but she couldn’t quite work out what it was. All she knew for sure was that there were a few things that weren’t adding up and it all started the night he walked into her diner. And her life.
Chapter 22
Declan
Declan’s hands shook with excitement as he fumbled to unlock the front door to the brownstone. He’d been too busy recently to spend time with his treasure, but now, it was not only a necessity, but also a welcoming and comforting distraction from all that had happened recently. After all, it wasn’t every day that a dragon got to pursue his mate and the more challenging the pursuit, the stronger the bond that would form, in time.
While it was true that the Elders of the dragon clan took charge of pairing suitable mates, the ways of the founding clan were still tightly woven within the DNA of the modern day dragons. Centuries ago, dragon males would recognize their true mate by sight and scent soon after they came of age. Humans learned of this unique ability in ancient times and coined the phrase ‘love at first sight’ to describe the powerful magic that brought dragons together in a union that could never be broken.
Declan still believed in the old ways and he knew, beyond any doubt, that Olivia was his perfect mate and that they were destined to be together. He had known this from the first moment he saw her, but he’d underestimated the type of treasure he’d have to give her before she would agree to the bonding ritual. Clearly, the gift of life, her life, wasn’t enough. She wanted more and he was determined to solve the puzzle.
The wise advice he’d heard from Mack as they worked out got him thinking. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? What girl doesn’t like the gift of jewelry? He’d mistakenly assumed that only dragons loved the sparkle of gold and precious stones. Treasure! That was the answer to his challenge. If he shared his treasure with her, like his ancestors had done during their bonding rituals, she would respond and give herself to him and become not only his mate but also a custodian of his treasure.
I’m an A Grade fucking genius! He thought proudly as he made his way to the vault doors beneath the stairs, with a huge grin on his face.
Access to the treasure vault could only be granted by the oversize doors when he was in his dragon form. Shifted to human form, his dragon powers ceased to be recognized by the magic controlling the vault. Dragons valued and protected their treasure diligently and only ever shared it with their mates. To everyone else, it was a closely guarded and well protected secret.
Olivia’s treasure was her beauty and her pure heart. Declan knew that he would have to offer her much before he could expect such a rare and precious treasure as her to give herself to him and share with him, his shiny, more tangible treasures. Now was the time to really go for it, as Mack, in his wisdom, had suggested. Honesty and jewelry. That was the key to a woman’s heart and if anyone would know, Mack would. He was all human, after all and had lived in the human world all his life.
For a fleeting moment, Declan wondered about Mack’s mate. The funny thing was — he’d never once mentioned her. That small detail, though, was quickly forgotten as Declan shifted into his dragon and spread his enormous, leathery wings before the entrance to the vault. At once, with a resounding, heavy click, the doors unlocked. The loud resonance of the echo that followed hinted strongly that there was more beyond the doors than a cupboard under the stairs. Much, much more.
Chapter 23
Olivia
Maybe it was the crushing tiredness or the dull ache in her legs or the throbbing headache from lack of sleep, but it took a few moments for Olivia to realize that the footsteps she was now hearing had been following her for a few minutes as she turned down a back alley to take a shortcut home.
No, not again. Really?
“Who’s there?” she barked in the most unfriendly tone she could as she turned to face the direction the footsteps were coming from.
“Is that any way to talk to your bodyguard?” a familiar voice answered.
A figure in a nondescript hoodie stepped out of the darkness and walked toward her with an efficiency and sleekness of movement usually only seen in predatory animals. He stopped in a pool of light directly in front of her.
Declan?
“Go away,” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood to deal with you right now. Or ever.”
“I’ve got something for you. Something you’re going to like, I promise.”
“I don’t want anything from you. There’s something funny about you and I know trouble when I see it. And you’re trouble with a capital ‘T’.”
“I’m not who you think I am,” Declan countered.
“So, now you’re not Batman?”
Olivia snorted, perhaps a little louder than necessary to make her point.
“Can we forget about Batman? Just for one minute? I’m trying to explain, if you’ll give me half a chance.”
“I gave you a chance and it got all weird. Everything has been weird since you came to the diner that night. A gang of armed muggers run off because one unarmed, although athletically built, guy shows up.” She held up a finger. “Then, you start doing some kind of spontaneous skin regeneration thing that we both know isn’t possible, unless you’re the Terminator.” She held up a second finger. “And then your eyes did some weird shit like one of those South American lizard things —”
“Iguana,” Declan interjected.
“What-the-fuck-ever.” Olivia rolled her eyes as she extended a third finger. “And if that isn’t enough like an episode of Fringe, I cut myself at work and bled like a stuck pig, but here’s the kicker, the cut healed in a couple of minutes.” A fourth finger was raised and held in front of Declan’s face as if it might divine some explanation from him.
“I can explain. Really. But first, I need to give you something,” he said as he stepped directly in front of her and reached into his pocket.
“I already told you, I don’t want anything from you. Wait … yes I do … I want you to leave me alone. I don’t need you and I sure as hell don’t want you hanging around. Stay away from me and stay away from the diner.” She turned and continued walking toward her apartment.
She didn’t hear him moving away. In fact, she heard nothing at all. And then, suddenly, there he was. Standing further down the alley with a big cocky smile on his smug face and leaning against a graffiti painted wall, like he’d been there all along.
“If you’re trying to impress me, you’re doing a lousy job. The weirder things get with you, the less I want to have to do with you. Taking some smart-ass shortcut and cutting me off really isn’t that impressive, anyway.” She made a snorting sound and added, “anyway, what are you, in high school or something?”
Pushing himself away from the wall as she approached, he held out his hand and from it, cascaded an array of magnificent and brilliantly sparkling diamonds, rubies and emeralds. It looked like part of a royal collection of crown jewels and even in the dark ally, their brilliance and rarity was unmistakable.
For the first time, a witty one liner eluded Olivia. She was officially speechless.
Chapter 24
Declan
“This is what I wanted to give you,” he said and he leaned into her and clasped the stunning necklace behind her neck before standing back to admire how well it suited her.
“I don’t understand?” Olivia shook her head.
“This has been in my family for hundreds of years. It’s a gift. It used to belong to a princess, now it still does.”
“I can’t …” Her eyes were transfixed on the sparkling stones, but she couldn’t fail to notice that the workmanship left a lot to be desired. Then the truth finally dawned on her. The piece really was hundreds of years old. It belonged to a time when craftsmen didn�
�t have modern technology to make such jewelry. He might actually be telling the truth.
“I don’t know how this works, but I got some help from a friend. He told me that if I tell you everything right up front and give you a nice gift, you might listen to me. So, here I am.”
“I’m listening,” she said as she cradled the weighty jewels in her fingers, still trying to convince herself that they couldn’t possibly be real.
Here we go …
“Alright,” he began and held up one finger, “firstly, I’m a dragon shifter. You’ve only seen me in my human form, well … apart from the eye thing. Anyway, I shifted into my dragon form to chase off those guys who were robbing you —”
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” She fixed a glare on his one raised finger, practically daring him to lift another.
“No, wait, Mack said that if I —”
Olivia raised her hand to stop him mid-sentence.
“I work in a diner. I can’t go back to work in banking because of my credit record, so waiting on tables is all I can do right now. But, that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Do you really think I was going to believe I could be anyone’s princess or that you’re some kind of dragon?”
Mack said tell her everything, right up front. Don’t hold anything back, he said.
As she fixed an icy stare directly into his emerald eyes, he blinked slowly, revealing glowing red eyes, like she’d seen before, only this time, they didn’t change back. They grew brighter and more vivid, taking on an almost reptilian look as the pupils turned into vertical slits.
Declan completed his shift quickly and without further explanation. After all, when you’re about to turn into a twelve foot tall dragon, there’s really not much to say.
Looking down at his mate, Declan’s dragon sat as demurely as a huge, winged dragon can, trying not to frighten her. She was everything he had ever dreamed of. But, if he frightened her now, he knew he’d never have another opportunity to make it right and he’d live the rest of his life as a solitary beast, exiled from his clan.
Chapter 25
Olivia
With her mouth agape, Olivia’s fingers slipped from the heavy gold, jewel laden necklace around her neck, as her hands fell to her sides. She couldn’t move. All she could do was stare silently at the creature before her. Strangely, though, she wasn’t afraid. Something within her, something she didn’t understand, made her feel safe. There was no threat. No danger. Quite the opposite. This beast was her protector and somehow, she just knew it would always protect her. No matter what.
Where the rational part of her brain should have been in fear for her life, another part of her brain shoved those thoughts into an unused corner of her mind and left them there to gather dust as she admired the beauty and elegance of the mythical creature before her.
“You’re not afraid?”
She could hear the voice — in her head. But the dragon’s lips didn’t move. Then again, she realized, that was the least of the things wrong with this picture. Not only didn’t dragons exist, even if they did, they couldn’t speak!
“We do exist. And we can speak, but not like you do. We connect with your mind to communicate. Breathing fire and having vocal cords are mutually exclusive.”
“Breathing fire …”
The dragon’s eyes glowed fiercely as it opened its mouth, revealing rows of fearsomely sharp teeth, illuminated by a steady orange glow building in intensity from deep within the dragon’s throat.
With a bellow, a blast of flames roared from the dragon’s mouth, shooting twenty feet in the air, radiating a near blistering heat through the small alley.
For a moment, the fireball hung in the air, allowing Olivia to clearly see the dragon fully illuminated. He was a thing of beauty. The leathery hide glistened with a color somewhere between jet black and a bottle green. Although it looked soft, there was no doubt as to its strength and resilience from the way it undulated as the powerful muscles beneath the hide flexed and rippled.
Sensing that Olivia was assessing him, the dragon extended his bat-like wings as much as the narrow alley would allow, which was sufficient to be both dominating and impressive.
“Oh-my-god!” Was all Olivia could say as the creature towered over her with its wings spread and the remnants of a dragon fireball diminishing overhead. What else was there to say, really?
“So, now do you believe me?” The dragon voice in her head asked.
Olivia nodded slowly.
“Dragon blood has a magical healing property. That’s how I’m able to heal, even in human form. That’s how I healed your ear after the bullet tore it to pieces — I used my blood. I gave you my blood.”
Olivia looked at her finger. “And that’s how my finger healed, after I cut it?”
“Yes. You now have dragon blood in you, but it’s a double edged sword.”
“What does that even mean?” Olivia narrowed her eyes as she waited for him to make sense of that.
“It means that if the dragon hunters, who have hunted dragons for centuries, learn of your gift, you will become one of the hunted, too. Like me.”
“Dragon hunters? Really?
“In medieval times, myths of dragons being the fearsome enemy of man were spread by dragon hunters who sought the magic properties of their blood. It’s what you humans call the elixir of life. Or the Philosopher’s Stone. You have enough to heal you, but not enough to give you immortality. Still, you have enough to make you valuable to them.”
“I think my head is ready to explode. Priceless jewels, dragon shifters, fire breathing dragons, no less and now magic dragon blood and dragon hunters …”
Declan stood before her, once more, having shifted to his human form while Olivia proceeded to list the events of the evening in short order.
“Is this better? Can we talk now or do you still not want to hear anything my lying ass has to say?” Declan smiled and winked. As he did so, his winking eye burned brightly red for a moment, before returning to the same hypnotic emerald as the other one.
Chapter 26
Declan
“Let me explain everything,” Declan pleaded. “Come home with me and I promise to tell you the truth and answer your questions. After that, you’re free to decide where you go from there.”
“What do you mean ‘free to decide’? I’m free to do as I damn well please, now and any time I like, thanks!” Olivia snapped.
“I meant … it doesn’t matter. Come if you want. If you don’t, well, goodnight, then.” Declan was betting her curiosity would win out as he turned and walked up the alley, toward his waiting motorcycle.
Olivia waited just long enough for it to look like she wasn’t coming because he asked her to, then she turned and casually made her way up the alley. Toward Declan’s waiting motorcycle.
Feeling his solid, well defined abs as they rode, she couldn’t help but be reminded of the sinewy, rippling muscles that lay beneath the gleaming skin of the dragon. Something about that image made her shift slightly on the seat of the motorcycle as she felt a warm sensation between her legs. Pressing her lavish breasts against his back, Olivia imagined what it might be like to trust this dangerous man-beast.
“So, you’re definitely not afraid, then? Quite the opposite,” Declan shouted into his helmet as they raced through the streets.
“How did you —”
He still knows what I’m thinking!
Declan nodded. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew he was smiling.
Cocky bastard.
Once they were inside Declan’s brownstone, Declan poured them both a glass of wine and ushered Olivia into the elegantly proportioned living room, where he gestured for her to be seated on the leather sofa.
“How can you afford all this?” she asked without embarrassment. “Seriously, a place like this has got to be worth, what … a few million?”
“Maybe twelve million, or so.” Declan waved his hand dismissively, placing his glass on the fireplace mantle be
fore lighting the open fire in the authentically restored open fireplace with a jet of flame from his mouth. “Dragons are hoarders, if you didn’t know,” he said as a wisp of smoke followed his words. “We don’t ever sell anything. Although, we do sometimes give some of our treasure away.”
“Like this?” she asked, touching the necklace that still remained around her neck. “You know I can’t accept this, don’t you?”
“We’ll see about that.”
“We won’t see about anything. I’m not taking it,” she insisted. “When you say ‘hoarder’, you mean like on ‘Hoarding: Buried Alive’?” She looked around. “I’m not seeing piles of 1930’s newspapers and mountains of crap.”
“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand to help her up from the sofa.
Before she realized what she was doing, she took his hand and he pulled her to her feet with no apparent effort. Together, they walked to the absurdly sized doors beneath the stairs.
“Stand back,” he instructed. “I have to shift to my dragon before the doors will unlock. Humans can enter the hoard, but only a dragon can unlock the entrance,” he explained.
Moving to the side to give him space, Olivia watched in amazement as he transformed, once again, into a glorious, mythical creature. Suddenly, what seemed like a cavernous entry hall was filled with a black, winged dragon. She loved seeing him perform his little party trick.
Declan’s dragon offered her a mock stage bow.
“I’ll never get used to that mind reading thing, you know. It’s quite unnerving.”