by Zoe Chant
Contents
The Mountain Dragon's Curvy Mate
A Note from Zoe Chant
Romance from Zoe Chant...and Friends
Special Preview: Undercover Alpha
The Mountain Dragon’s Curvy Mate
By Zoe Chant
Copyright Zoe Chant 2017
All Rights Reserved
1
There were lots of good things about working in science, Rachel reminded herself as she zipped up her snowsuit. She got to go out and see blue sky and green trees. She could breathe fresh air and see things no one else saw. She didn’t spend all her day inside a climate-controlled lab. Sometimes she had funding to do the work she loved the most.
Those were all good things. Wonderful things.
If only it wasn’t so cold out today, she could really enjoy all of that.
Today was the first day it hadn’t been dangerously cold. For most of the past week, the weather forecast had advised that people not go out at all with uncovered skin and avoid doing anything outdoors that could be avoided. So she’d stayed back at the lab with her gear, waiting for the temperature to drop and checking the instruments for the next rumbles and cracks.
Anders Peak was a solid Adirondack mountain that had been there for centuries without the faintest sign of seismic activity. It had settled into a nice, stable place in its formation, its craggy white peaks above the treeline making it a popular challenge for hikers.
That is, until a month ago, when the mountain had started rumbling.
The rumbles didn’t seem to be earthquakes. It wouldn’t have made any sense for them to be earthquakes, anyway. This wasn’t the kind of mountain that would undergoing substantial tectonic change.
But the rumbles kept happening, and even the residents of the nearby town had started noticing. The most plausible explanation was that someone was up to something they weren’t supposed to be doing, but what that something could be in the middle of an Adirondack winter was open to question. Aerial surveillance hadn’t given them any clues, so Rachel was going to snowshoe up and take a good look. It’d only be a few hours up and down, as the mountain had a gentler slope on the east face and there was a good snowmobile trail the locals used that would get her pretty high up. It was probably too cold to try taking any samples, but she’d carry a light field kit anyway.
It should be a simple up and down, and there probably wouldn’t be anything worth noting. Just a little mountain air, some beautiful scenery. It’d be fun, really. She just wished the temperature hadn’t dropped quite so low.
Get in, take some samples, get out. Easy. Maybe she’d even get a start on figuring out what was causing all this shaking in the first place. That would be nice. Usually she was just one person gathering pieces that would be put together later back at the university, but it was always nice when you were the person with the key piece.
Maybe she could get coffee or something with her friend Karen later, though she’d been busy lately with her new baby. It seemed like everyone around her was busy with something—their family, a new boyfriend or girlfriend. Rachel was too busy to be lonely, but sometimes…
Stop spacing out and get to work, she told herself. She checked her gear again. Snowsuit, snowshoes, heat packs, a pair of flares in case things went wrong. Her field kit. Her camera battery was already charged. The radio would run off a solar panel or the snowmobile battery, if things took an unexpected turn for the worse. Might as well head out.
She picked up the radio. “Keller here, I’m heading out.”
“Okay,” came Karen’s voice from back at the lab. “Check in when you get to the site.”
“10-4,” Rachel said, and got on her snowmobile.
The trip up to the landing was uneventful. She parked her snowmobile, put on her snowshoes, and took a quick look around. She could see nothing unusual about the mountain at all. It didn’t even look like the shaking had affected the characteristic patterns of snowdrift, which…well, that was probably a good sign.
She made sure her gloves were tight and headed up the trail. It had snowed a little overnight, which meant she was walking through light, fluffy powder. After a while, she was warmed up, and the cold bothered her a lot less.
About halfway up the trail, there was a spot where people could look out over the mountainside; a sheer break in the rock that exposed a spectacular view. She always liked to pause there a little while. She noticed the small metal fence that usually served as a last-ditch stop against falling had broken with the winter snowfall.
That was all right. She had her snowshoes, and it wasn’t that slippery, anyway.
The mountains were beautiful up here. You could see how colossal they really were, and get a sense of their history, all their changes and transformation. Sometimes Rachel thought she could almost see what had happened, the rocks staying behind while the massive glaciers melted—
She felt a brush of wind, close to her shoulder. Almost like a bird, though it felt larger than that—
She didn’t have time to turn her head and look before something—someone pushed at the center of her back, so hard she stumbled forward, toward the cliff.
Her foot dropped into air.
She scrambled for purchase, to get a hand, foot, something to steady her, to stop the fall—
Nothing worked. Her gloves were too slippery on the snow. She fell, down, down—
Something crashed into her back. Stone, hard, painful. The rough edges were ripping at her snowsuit, and she felt cold sneaking in.
She tried twisting her body to lessen the impact, but it was hard to tell which way was up. All there was was down, faster and faster.
How long would she have to fall before the speed of the descent would kill her? She might not even have the chance to—
She fell into something painful before she finally crashed to the ground. She struggled to catch her breath. Her ribs were on fire. Still, Rachel thought. It’s not as bad as it could be. She could tell she’d fallen into a snowdrift, not on sheer rock. Rock might have killed her.
Of course, now the cold and ice would probably kill her.
First, she needed to get up. A few seconds to catch her breath, that was all she needed. Just a little time to take stock. Her snowsuit was ripped, in at least one place. Her hat and gloves were still intact, and one boot was still on. She couldn’t tell if the boot or her snowshoes were anywhere near her without lifting her head.
She wiggled her fingers and toes, without much additional pain. Then she tried lifting one arm slowly, then the other, then one leg after another.
Okay, Rachel told herself. This is as good as it’s going to get. Now I just need to sit up—
When she tried, pain exploded through her ribs, taking her breath away.
Maybe she just needed to rest a little longer. Not too long—not so long as to be dangerous—but enough to give her ribs a little time to recover.
For a second, she allowed herself a fantasy—someone strong and protective, coming to her rescue. Pulling her out of the snow and keeping her warm and safe. It was ridiculous, but it made her feel a little better. Maybe a shifter; she’d never met a shifter, that she knew of. It could be a giant eagle, like in the books. Or a dragon, or griffin…were there griffin shifters?
She’d be fine, in just a few minutes. Just a little rest. That was all.
She closed her eyes.
2
Something strange was going on at Anders Peak. Uncle Doug had asked Brad to take a look before the next snowfall hit. The mountain was far too close to the family lair for the clan to want anyone wandering around, and the rumblings were too irregular and strong to be natural activity. Someone was up to something.
Brad tried not to be annoyed that Doug had asked him to go out ‘right away.’ He was less than a week from his twenty-fifth birthday, which meant that he was running out of time to meet his mate.
If a Banik didn't meet his mate by twenty-five, he was going to live his life alone. Like his uncle had. Those were the terms of the family curse, and everyone in the clan knew it. That was why Brad had been to half-a-dozen parties in the past month, including two excruciating ‘shifter mixers’ for unattached young people from shifter families. Why his mom had sent him all those links on FaceMatch. She hadn’t given up hope, that was for sure. His brother wanted him to come over and meet one of his friends—a long shot, but worth a try, Brad had figured.
But less than a week was still time, and he’d still managed to hold on to his hope, even as his birthday drew closer. There had to be something, some way he’d find her.
Maybe Doug figured that Brad was already out of luck, just like he was. But Brad hadn't given up. And now he was wasting time flying out to Anders Peak. Whatever was out there was certainly not his mate.
He stretched out his wings. It was cold, but despite that—and despite his annoyance—it was still good to be flying. He spent most of his time these days indoors and in a suit. This was a chance to be a dragon again, to feel his magic, to be close to the family hoards. It wasn't all bad.
Hell, Doug was probably right. He'd felt the same disappointment, probably, as the days came closer and closer to the big two-five—hope that maybe, against all odds, he'd meet the person he was meant to spend the rest of his life with. And fear that he'd spend the rest of his life alone.
It was a hard thing to think about.
Doug had retreated. He managed the family business and looked after the clan, but he did most of it from his home out in the middle of the Adirondack forest, by phone or email. His emails were terse and to the point, and as far as Brad could tell he didn't have many friends. Brad knew he wasn't going to close up his life like Doug had—his family was too important to him, and he couldn't imagine a life where he didn't spend time with his brothers and sister—but the thought of everyone else moving on, getting married, having families and kids while he stayed alone…it sounded almost as lonely as spending the rest of his life up a mountain.
He'd spent his whole life thinking about his future, about a mate of his own. He'd never had that stage some boys had where girls were 'icky.' He'd always wanted girls to be his friends. He'd dreamed of getting married and having a family of his own someday, even when he was too little to know exactly what that meant. When he was thirteen he’d even made a list of what he wanted: someone pretty, someone interested in the world and how it worked, someone who liked dragons. He’d even picked out her eye color, though he couldn’t remember what it had been. Most of the list had stuck.
He'd dated a little in high school, hoping that lightning would strike him and he'd find the woman he was meant for. He kept his eyes open all through college. But no lightning had struck. Nothing had even come close. He'd tried with a couple of girls in college, girls who were curvy and smart and made him smile, thinking that maybe he just didn't feel the mate sense as strongly as his father and older brother had, but in the end he'd known he was just fooling himself.
He didn't have a mate. And in six days he'd know if he ever would.
He rode the wind currents, cloaking himself in the bright, clear blue of the sky, trying to lose himself in the pleasure of flight. The storms had subsided for now, and the sun was bright, almost blinding against the snow.
The Adirondacks were beautiful; Brad was glad the family had chosen this location. The Banik clan had other lairs in North and South America, divided to keep them secure, but nothing beat the bracing cold of these mountains. On days like this it felt like he could fly forever, white mountains below him, endless blue above.
The clan kept their hoards carefully guarded by magic, invisible to human eye or even those of other dragons. There was no reason for any unusual shaking or disturbance to be happening there. And yet the shaking kept coming.
Doug had even said the local seismologists were starting to get interested. That was something no one wanted—even the strongest field magic had its limits. At some point the dragons or the scientists would start noticing one another, and then they'd have to re-site the lair all over again. That work was harder and harder to do in the age of the Internet and satellite photography. Better to stay on top of things and keep the hoards safe.
As he drew closer to the peak, he focused on the patterns he could see in the snow. Most of them looked like normal snowdrifts, the effects of hard wind and shifting weather. He could see where a few tiny avalanches had happened—hardly worth the name—but nothing that stood out. Whatever was going on on the side of their mountain, it wasn't written in the snow. He'd have to get down on the mountainside and take a better look.
There was a snowmobile trail at the base of the mountain; Brad decided he'd better take a look and see if it had been recently used. To his surprise, once he turned to the east face of the mountain, he saw it had been more than recently used—there was a single snowmobile, still steaming a little from use. It was decorated with the logo of the local college; he couldn't remember the name, and couldn't read it from the sky.
We're already too late, he thought. We've got humans poking around.
That just made it all the more imperative for him to find out what was going on. If they could figure out the cause—and stop whatever was causing the problems—right away, the scientist would leave confused, but empty-handed. There wasn't usually funding for 'our readings were funny for a few weeks, but everything seems to be fine now.'
This was going to be an easy problem with an easy solution. And maybe he'd go into town afterward, warm up in front of a fireplace somewhere and have a nice cold beer. Meet the girl he'd always meant to meet. Live happily ever after.
Yeah. Right.
The first thing he needed to do was locate the scientist. Investigating the problem could wait until he knew he wouldn't call any extra attention to himself. One snowmobile, which meant it couldn't be more than two people, and it looked like it was loaded for one. That would be easy to avoid once he knew where they were. He dove, letting his wings ride the current, to get a closer look. One set of footprints, that was good. A small man, or a woman. Doug probably could have guessed their height and weight just on the indentations that had been made in the snow, but Brad wasn't nearly so skilled.
He was skilled enough to follow the scientist's path up the mountain, though, on good snowshoes that left level, criss-cross patterns in the snow. The scientist worked their way up steadily, following a trail that Brad himself knew well. It was the easiest way to get up the mountain.
Brad thought about shifting back to human form, but he couldn't handle the cold as well with human skin as he could as a dragon. Plus, he hadn’t bothered with cold weather gear. Showing up on a mountainside in a sweater and jeans would, at the very least, look suspicious.
Better to glide closer, carefully. People could notice the wind from his wings, so he had to make sure he had a safe distance from anyone on the mountain.
The tracks led up the hiking trail, which was safe enough as long as you had good cold weather gear and the weather wasn't too bad. Brad followed the tracks up, up—
The fence on the lookout point had been broken. That could have just been the snow, but the snowshoe tracks stopped so abruptly that the scales lifted up on the back of Brad’s neck.
Someone had fallen.
Or maybe they’d been pushed.
Brad would have to get in closer.
Where was the human now? Could they have survived the fall? He looked carefully down below the broken fence, and his eyes caught a spot of bright blue. He swooped down, his heart pounding.
As he got closer, he could see the subtle movement of the scientist's breathing. Alive, still, but probably cold. He could see where her snowsuit had ripped on her way down.
He needed to check her over, and quickly. He landed in the snow next to her, as gently as he could; his dragon's claws worked similarly to snowshoes, spreading out his weight and lessening the impact. He extended his hands and let his magic flow through her, looking for injury.
Her head and spine were uninjured. She had some scrapes and minor bruises, but the greatest injury was to her ribs, which had taken more of the impact of her fall. He could mend that later. The first priority was to get her out of the cold, before she froze to death. He went to gather her into his arms. She had long, dark hair that fell in waves around her face, and he could feel her soft, generous curves. He wrapped his wings around her to keep as much heat in as he could.
He'd have to take her back to the lair; there wasn't enough time to get her to a hospital without risking frostbite or worse. The questions would come, but he could deal with them later, with magic if he had to. Saving her life came first. He could heat the lair easily enough and give her a chance to recover.
The easiest way to carry her would be between his arms. He turned her slightly, to make sure he had a good grip on her.
There was something on her back, a tear in her snowsuit that was smaller from the rest. He almost didn't notice it, until he saw something sticking out of the rip. It might have been a twig, and someone without a dragon's eyes might have thought that was all it was.
Brad recognized it immediately.
It was the nail sheath of a dragon. It must have caught on the woman's snowsuit as—