by Zoe Chant
“All right.” She followed him over to an open space. “Why don’t you take this all the time?”
“Sometimes your wings get tired,” he said. “And you have to learn to fly, just like walking. Most of us don’t start flying until we’re ten or eleven, unless we get spooked or we’re really talented at it. Stairs are pretty important.” He nodded his head forward, and in half-a-second he was a dragon again.
She hadn’t gotten a very good look at him the first time. She’d been too shocked. Now she could see what he really was.
His scales were iridescent, blues and greens shimmering over the gold that covered his body. His wings looked like they were pure gold, stretched over their framework of bone and muscle. He also looked incredibly strong. He reached his arms out to her; thin, with delicate, sharp-looking claws. She stepped into his embrace.
His skin was leathery and very, very warm. He wrapped his arms around her and then—
They were flying.
It wasn’t the open air, just a warm tunnel of stone you could have driven a Mack truck through, but it was still flying.
Her skin tingled as the warm air passed over her.
It was amazing.
It was over too soon, way too soon, and they were back on solid ground again. Brad stood back from her, letting her go, and the air shimmered again. “Are you okay?” he asked. He was human again, handsome again, just like that. She thought she caught a glimmer of gold in his dark eyes as he looked at her.
“More than okay,” she said. “That was incredible.”
He smiled. “Well…good.”
The shaking had stopped.
“Let’s see if I can get Doug,” he said. “I’m starting to feel like we’re running out of time.”
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Stay here with me for now,” he said. “We may have to move fast, and I want to know right where you are.”
“I was looking forward to the lasagna, too,” she said wryly.
“Me too,” he said, and the way he said it sounded like he was more interested in her company than the lasagna.
That was a nice thought.
He slid the headset on and tried to get in contact with his uncle. Still no response. He handed his cell phone back to her. “Can you check and see if my signal’s come back? I’ve kind of given up, but—”
Worth a try, she thought, and took his phone off airplane mode. She watched the bars carefully. Nothing. Not a flicker. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he said. “We can’t move until the weather clears up. I think we’ve got a spare snowsuit in my sister’s room you might be able to use—worst case scenario, maybe you could use one of my brothers’. Maybe—would you mind staying here, on the radio for a second?”
“Um, of course not,” she said. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the setups, though she hadn’t used one in years. “Give me the headphones and I’ll—”
“I want to get some stuff around, in case we have to leave in a hurry,” he said.
She nodded and took his place at the chair.
“Just call every…couple of minutes or so, whatever feels right,” she said. “You heard me, just do what I’ve done—if he asks who you are, tell him the truth. He’ll know he can trust you if I do.”
“That’s…pretty trusting.”
His hand rested on her shoulder for a second. “Just have faith, Rachel. I’ll be right back.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Wish me luck.”
“You won’t need it,” he said. “You’ve got this.”
She heard him go—he didn’t take the stairs this time, just jumped into the tunnel and transformed. She heard a single noise—his wings flapping—and then he was gone.
She waited a few minutes and then tried calling Doug again. “Thuman, Thuman come in, this is Station Hercules, do you copy?”
Nothing. At least the shaking had stopped. She looked out into the night. It was too overcast to see any signal lights or activity that might be out there. What did the other dragons want? And why had they hurt her?
There was no sense trying to imagine the right answer. She tuned the radio again. “Hello, Thuman, Thuman, Station Hercules here, do you copy?”
“Station Hercules,” came a man’s voice, “This is Thuman. Identify yourself.” His voice was deep, deeper than Brad’s, though she could hear echoes of his nephew as he spoke. He sounded serious. Of course, she was a total stranger. He was probably suspicious.
“Station Hercules here,” she said. “Calling on behalf of—” She looked up at the piece of paper with call signs tacked on the wall next to the radio. “Eltanin of Hercules. Do you copy?”
“I copy,” he said, and she could hear his irritation. “Where is Eltanin?”
“We have a situation, Thuman,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. “The seismic activity has increased, and someone investigating it from the university was attacked. Um. Me. Eltanin is gathering supplies, in case we have to evacuate quickly. He asked me to keep trying to reach you.”
“You’re in the radio room?”
“Confirmed,” she said.
“So he’s found his mate,” he said. “What’s the weather like there, if you do have to evacuate? I heard there was a storm.”
“It’s pretty—wait, mate?”
7
Brad flew back up to the tower, hoping against hope that Doug would have caught the message this time.
He was relieved to hear his uncle’s voice…and then he caught the words that his uncle was saying.
“…mate for life. It’s obvious you’re his mate, or he wouldn’t be trusting you with—”
You have got to be kidding me. “Rachel? What…exactly are you discussing with my uncle? What exactly is he saying?”
She spun around in the chair. He couldn’t read her expression. She didn’t look angry, at least, but— “I’ve told him about the…intruders,” she said, carefully. “And he’s telling me a little bit about mates.”
“I see,” he said, stopping his hands from curling into fists with some effort. “On an open channel. Without asking me if I’d talked to Rachel about any of this first.”
“I’m driving out tonight,” Doug said, not fazed by Brad’s words at all. “I’m going to get as far as I can before the storm stops me. I should be at the lair in the morning.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“That’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “I’ll talk with you tomorrow. You’re authorized to take Protocol Zed if the situation escalates before I can get there. Rachel seems capable enough.”
“Thanks,” Brad heard Rachel mutter under her breath.
“Fine,” Brad said. He knew that was the last he was going to get out of his uncle for the night. It was typical, really. Doug mostly dealt with numbers on paper, not human beings, and seemed to like it that way. He wouldn’t worry for a moment about screwing up his nephew’s love life…not out of spite, just because it wouldn’t even cross his mind.
“Over and out,” Rachel said, and shut off the radio in a hurry.
“I should have warned you about him,” Brad said. “He’s…not great with people. Though he’s usually not that—not great.” And if he’s ruined your trust in me—
“He’s probably just worried,” she said. “I mean, I would be, if it were my sister, or if she had kids. Especially since he knows he can’t just come here to check on things himself. He said—um, let me see—” She glanced down at a piece of paper at the desk. “I made some notes. He said that he hadn’t heard anything from his usual networks, so he’d ask, but he agreed with you that it was probably some kind of rogue action. He said there were things you could do if it got more dangerous, and that the lair is magically reinforced—I wasn’t worried about that, but I think he was afraid I was—and that the forecast says the storm should all be blown through by about five o’clock tomorrow morning. Which—well, you heard him say he was coming out.”
“And I guess you heard him saying that stuff about me being your mate.”
“I guess I did.”
She stood up from the desk and turned to face him. Her face had reddened a little. “I mean, I’m flattered he thinks it, but I tried to explain that you’d just saved me from the mountain. It’s not like it’s love at first sight or anything, right?”
“Well,” he said. He felt wretched. “It kind of is. Not when you first see your mate, but when you first connect. Like, when your eyes meet for the first time, or when you hear their voice speaking to you. It’s…special.”
“I see,” she said. “That’s very romantic, but really?”
“It is, but it’s hard to explain without it sounding kind of creepy.”
She laughed. “I don’t think it’s creepy.”
“Well, the problem is, you meet your mate, and you know, you just know it. And sometimes they realize it too, or they just find you—very handsome, and charming.” He put on a silly smile to underline his point. “See? Very charming.”
She laughed again, and his heart grew lighter. “Very.”
“But then you have to decide when, and how, to tell the person you—well, the person you love—the truth. Because you don’t want to just come up to someone and say ‘hello, I’m pretty certain you’re my mate. Do you want to plan the wedding now, or wait a month?’”
She tilted her head to one side, her pretty mouth pursing. “I’m starting to see how people could think this was creepy.”
“I mean, my dad told me it always works out, that if someone’s your mate that’s just all there is to it. But if you love someone, you want it to work out the best way it can. You don’t want to scare them, or make them uncomfortable. Like, you know, if your uncle decides to announce it without even warning you. That might make your mate uncomfortable.”
She was still smiling. That was good, wasn’t it? “I can’t imagine you scaring anyone.”
“I can turn into a dragon.”
She shook her head. “I still can’t imagine it. Whoever your mate is, they’re going to be pretty lucky.”
Now or never.
Just tell her, the dragon was all but shouting. She’s yours! Don’t hesitate any longer! “Rachel,” he said. “My uncle—he’s a jerk, but he’s right. When I saw you in the snow, I saw someone in trouble. Someone I was obligated to save. But when you woke up, when I saw your face, your eyes—I knew, then. You weren’t just someone in trouble. You were the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I wouldn’t have shown you all I did if I wasn’t sure. That’s how he knew.”
Her face froze for a second in shock, and Brad felt his chest freezing up, too. They were trapped together in the lair, for now. If she was scared, or freaked out—
But then her expression changed, to something like wonder. “That…how is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s how we’ve always done it, though. We know. We just know.” He reached out his hand to her. “It’s what happened when my father saw my mother. When my grandfather met my grandmother.”
She took it in her own, her soft skin against his. “I’m not sure I believe that,” she said. “But…I’d like to.”
“We’ve got time,” he said. “I’ll take all the time you need.”
“I guess you could start by kissing me,” she suggested.
I told you!
“I like that plan,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.
She was warm, so warm against him, and her curves melted perfectly into his body. She kissed with passion, hunger. She might not be sure she was his mate yet, but she certainly seemed confident kissing him, and he felt her heartbeat pounding against his chest. He put a hand into her hair, which felt soft and wavy.
I could do this for hours, he thought, feeling his own blood pumping, his cock demanding more and more. He wanted to pick her up and carry her down to his hoard, to the bed. To strip her naked and make love to her until morning. To kiss every inch of her skin.
He settled for kissing her as passionately as he could, for pulling her closer and closer and losing himself in her touch, in the little gasps of pleasure she made when they broke apart and he touched her somewhere new.
He was kissing the side of her neck—such soft skin, Rachel moaning gently as he brushed his lips against the nape—when he felt an unfamiliar vibration.
“Oh,” she said, “Um, I set the timer on my Fitbit. That’s the lasagna. We probably should—”
“We should,” he agreed. “We might have a long night. It’s important to keep up our strength. And I need to tell you about Protocol Zed, and I—I don’t think either of us will pay attention if I keep kissing you through that.”
“I think you’re right,” she agreed, reaching out to smooth his sweater down. “It was nice, though. Kissing you.”
“It was for me too,” he said. He kissed the side of her cheek, and together they walked down to the kitchen. He had gotten hungry; it would be good for them to take some time to eat. And it would give Rachel more time to adjust to the idea of being his mate.
He was still pissed at Doug for that. What the hell had gotten into him? You didn’t just talk with someone about being a mate. Not without checking in your family member first. It was a jerk move.
If Doug had ever found his own mate maybe he would’ve understood.
Maybe not. Maybe there was a reason Doug had never found a mate.
You’re being angry, he told himself. Get over yourself and take care of Rachel for now. Your mate’s here. Be happy.
He checked the lasagna. “Not quite ready,” he said. “But we can set the table. I should’ve checked to see if there was bread.”
“We don’t really need bread,” she said. “I figure we’re pretty lucky just to have real food to eat. How does the stove vent?”
“D & I,” he said. “Diffusion and illusion. There’s a network of smaller vents the furnace and stove feed into, and then it’s all covered by illusion. Easier to hide a few small sources of smoke than one big one, and there’s less snowmelt that way.” He slid open the silverware drawer, and together they set the table. He wished they had a few candles on hand. With dragonfire there was never any worry about fueling the lair, but a little romantic lighting would have been nice. He could have gotten out a tablecloth, but maybe not—Rachel already seemed a little overwhelmed by all the gold, and he wasn’t sure there were any tablecloths that didn’t glitter. “Do you like working at the university?”
“I do,” she said, sitting at the kitchen table. She even sat gracefully, he noted, her posture straight and her fingers resting gently on the table. “I’m working on finishing up my doctorate there. I…still haven’t really figured out what I want to do after that. If I had a little more funding, it would help. I’ve applied for some grants, but it feels like a crapshoot.”
“Well, we’ve always got room for people with geological experience,” he said. “Seriously. Mostly what I do is investment, but Doug works to keep the lairs strong and stable. He’s been looking for an emergency location.”
“Have you been worried about—” She gestured. “Something like this?”
“I think the best way to explain it is to say that Uncle Doug is always worried about something.” He sat down opposite her. “I’m sorry about how he was on the radio.”
She shrugged. “He was worried. I guess I would be too, if I found myself talking to a strange woman instead of my favorite nephew.”
“I’m not his favorite,” he said wryly. “That’s Aaron’s honor. I’m glad he at least trusted you enough to talk with you.”
“That reminds me, what was that Protocol Zed he talked about?”
“I’ll have to show you after dinner,” he said. “Basically it’s a worst-case-scenario tool. If the dragons who guard the lair are hurt or something else goes wrong, a human in their clan can use it to protect the lair. It—well, the best way to put it is it’
s an anti-magic. It won’t hurt a shifter, but it weakens their magic.”
“Even the magic that holds this place together?”
“Well, if you poured it into the walls, yes, but you’d need a lot of it. This is more like—an anti-magic blaster, I guess.” He felt sheepish. “I mean, not a blaster, really, but that’s probably the best way to describe it. Generations ago it was fashioned more like a wand, then a bow and arrow. Dragons have modified it over the generations to make it easier for newcomers to wield—it’s not exactly something we want people training with for hours.”
“Is it weird to be around it?”
“Uncomfortable,” he said. “And if you’ve been hit with it, you can’t shift or heal yourself for a while. That’s why it has to be used carefully, and why it’s a last resort.”
“And you have to really trust the people you share it with.”
“Exactly.” He reached across the table and took her hand. Just touching her skin—it was driving him crazy. “Like you.”
“I still don’t know how you can be so sure.”
“I didn’t either, until today.” He squeezed her fingers. “My father told me that if—when—I met my mate, I’d know, just instantly know, and I thought he was out of his mind.”
“But…you knew?” Was that hope in her voice?
“I did,” he said. “I hope—I hope you’ll know, too, the way I do.” He smiled. “I can’t wait to have you meet my parents, honestly. That sounds so dorky, but—they’re great. And mom’s not a shifter, so you can talk to her about all this stuff. It was all new to her, too.”
“If most guys talked to me like that the first day I met them, I’d think they were getting ahead of themselves,” she said. “But I’ll tell you the truth…I kind of want to meet your parents, too.”
“I’m glad.”
They sat there holding hands like a couple of kids with a crush for a minute, before Brad realized he had to get up and check the lasagna again. It was ready, so he pulled it out of the oven and let it sit on the countertop. “I should show you Protocol Zed while we let that rest. It won’t take long, it’s right over here, next to the kitchen sink. Easy to find. There was a lot of debate about the best place to put it, but we decided it should be somewhere everyone could access, and where someone could go without being too suspicious in an emergency. My great-uncle wanted it to be in the bathroom, I guess, but his wife threw a fit and said it was no place for—anyway, you’re right on top of it now, almost.”