by Amelia Jade
“It’s Levion, Lev-eee-en,” she said, sounding it out phonetically for him.
There was silence.
Right, she’d been asking a question. Riss slammed her palm off her forehead.
“What do you do, Zander?” she asked, still not sure how she’d worked up the courage to ask that question.
“Does it matter?” came the rumbled reply, so deep she could see the mirror hanging on her side of the door vibrate a little.
“Not particularly,” she said affably, “I’m just curious. We don’t get many dragon shifters in here.”
There was a pause.
“How do you know I’m a dragon shifter?” he asked, and she sensed a bit of real interest there.
“Your walk,” she said without hesitation.
“My…walk?” he asked in mild surprise.
“Yes,” she said, hearing his belt jingle slightly as he did it up. She turned around, putting her back to the door as she took a deep breath, trying not to focus on the image in her head, the one where he was just taking his pants off, instead of putting them on.
Come on girl, control yourself.
“Can you explain that?” he asked, opening the door.
Riss sighed in relief as she turned back to face him. The words died in her throat though, as she realized he was still in the process of doing up the buttons of his shirt, despite the door being open. Her mouth went drier than the desert south of Cadia at the sight of his bulging pecs, before they disappeared under his black shirt once more.
“Ah, of course,” she stalled, trying to recover herself.
Zander arched an eyebrow, but thankfully refrained from actually saying anything.
“It’s tough to describe,” she said. “The wolves prowl, the bears amble, and you dragons, you just…move. It’s so graceful and yet powerful at the same time. Not arrogance, but just a sureness and belief in your own strength and ability. That you know you needn’t worry about anything, but you also aren’t trying to intimidate anyone either.” She paused and thought over her words. She nodded. “Yeah, that. If that makes any sense.”
Zander regarded her, none of his thoughts showing through to his face. “That’s very astute of you,” he said at last.
Riss shrugged. “As a human in Cadia, I learned long ago to be astute and wary of my surroundings. It’s not the safest place for us, even those of us who live here legally.”
The dragon shifter didn’t respond to that. His eyes were focused beyond her right shoulder, toward the back of the store. Riss didn’t turn around, because she could see what he was looking at in the mirror behind him. Her boss had returned and was eyeing them both with interest. Zander, it seemed, didn’t particularly like that.
“Do you like working here?” he asked her suddenly, his eyes still focused behind her.
“Sure,” Riss replied. “It pays the bills mostly, and I get to meet a lot of new people, even if most of them aren’t as kind as you.”
The brass-brown eyes flicked back to her sharply at that. “Kind?” he asked.
“Sure. You’ve talked to me, kept actual conversation with me, instead of just ordering me around. ‘Riss do this. Riss do that,’” she mimicked with a helpless shrug.
“And your boss,” Zander asked in a low voice. “Does he just do that?”
Was that jealousy in his voice she detected? There had definitely been a sliver of something, but it was too brief for her to place it.
“Mr. Barnesworth?” she asked, surprised. “Sometimes, I guess. But he is my boss. Usually he’s just rude.”
Zander frowned, but nodded in understanding. “Very well, shall I pay?” he asked, and began to move toward the back counter.
She watched him go, wishing she could just fill the room with sheer force of willpower the way he did. Even Mr. Barnesworth, a tiger shifter himself, was cowed simply by Zander’s presence. He backed away slightly from the counter. Zander said something, though she couldn’t hear what, and Barnesworth moved away completely, gesturing for Riss to come over and help.
Scurrying across the floor, she got behind the counter and began to put his bill together.
“I’ll need two pairs of shoes to go with this as well,” he told her. “Size thirteen.”
Without looking up, Riss scribbled a note on his bill. “I’ll have some set up for you to try on tomorrow with the suit,” she said.
“Excellent.” Then he spoke again, but this time it wasn’t directed at her. “Riss is an excellent employee, Mr. Barnesworth. I hope you treat her as such.”
“Riss is my only employee,” came the slightly arrogant reply, followed up by his trademark sniff of disdain. “For a human, she has exceptional taste and judgment when it comes to outfitting our clientele.”
Angry silence radiated outward from Zander at those words. She risked a glance upward and saw the smoldering rage burning in his eyes, a fire that wouldn’t be quenched any time soon. For a moment she thought the dragon shifter was going to hurdle the counter and attack her boss. His muscles began to shake and she knew that it was now or never. She had to do something.
Steeling her nerves, she reached out and placed her hand on top of his, where it rested on the counter.
Zander jerked as if stung, but Riss didn’t flinch. She stood her ground and held his gaze as he looked at her, instead of her boss. Searing heat reached up from his hand and moved up her arm like a rolling tidal wave, but she didn’t pull it back. The feeling excited her, though she was afraid of what might happen when it reached her core.
“How did you want to pay?” she asked into the silence, hoping to focus his mind elsewhere.
The big stony-faced dragon shifter hesitated for a moment longer, then he closed his eyes and removed his hand, much to her dismay. The fire receded almost instantly, never having reached her center. Her lip pulsed pain as she bit on it unconsciously, aching to reach out and touch him again, to find out what would happen the longer she had her skin against his.
“Cash,” he replied at long last, and pulled out a thick roll from his pocket.
Behind her, Barnesworth inhaled sharply. Riss tried to put him out of her mind, and began sorting out the stacks he was laying on the counter in front of her.
“I’ll see you,” Zander replied once they had settled up.
“Tomorrow morning,” she replied with a little smile.
Zander gave her a strange look, and then he was gone, the entire shop suddenly seeming much larger than it had moments before.
Tomorrow.
Chapter Three
Zander
The sun was already down by the time the final light was doused inside Challer’s. Summer was over, and while the days were still quite warm, the nights came earlier and they were getting cooler with a rapidity that suggested winter wasn’t too far away. The high Quicksilver mountain range to the west of Cadia didn’t help the situation. They rose up like giant teeth into the sky, cutting the sun’s light off well before it would have set over the horizon.
All of which meant that the shadows were long, but the stars were still absent. Twilight. One of his favorite times of day. Everything was just beginning to shut down from the day, and the nightlife had yet to stir. Zander preferred to be high in the sky at this time of day if at all possible.
Not today.
No, he had another thing to take care of today.
Movement brought him forth from his reverie and he used his elbow to push off the brick wall of the nearby building he’d been leaning against. Long, booted steps took him across the street and into the alleyway.
The figure in the coat and hat hunched over the door, oblivious to his approach at first, but as he got deeper into the alley his footsteps began to echo more. Zander could move silently if he wished, but just then he wasn’t trying to conceal his presence. In fact, if he was aiming for anything, it was the complete opposite.
What he didn’t expect was the unanticipated side effect of the person knowing he was approaching.
&n
bsp; “Stay back,” came the voice.
Zander didn’t reply, not having any intention of doing so.
“I said stay back!” the voice said once more, firmer this time.
“Look, I—”
Riss whirled and fired the Taser at him.
Zander’s hand flashed out and he caught the leads mid-air, his hand tightening around them and crushing them into pieces. He still caught some of the shock, and his face tightened as he absorbed the electricity into his system, shaking slightly as his body fought back against it.
After a moment it was over, and he let the now-useless wires fall to the ground.
“Zander?!” Riss cried.
“Yes.” His voice caught slightly as an aftershock rushed through him, but he shook it off with a violent shiver.
“What the hell?” she exclaimed, shaking her head in astonishment and rushing forward to him. “Are you okay? Why the hell did you sneak up on me like that?”
He swallowed, taking a deep breath as his system returned to normal. “I am okay.”
“That’s good. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re sneaking up on me in an alley.”
Zander looked at her in confusion. “I didn’t sneak up on you. I strode down here making plenty of noise. Did you not hear my shoes scraping and echoing? If I were sneaking, you wouldn’t have heard me until I was next to you.” He said it matter-of-factly, surprised she didn’t understand.
“That is not enough,” she snapped. “You need to warn someone when you’re doing something like that. You know, speak up!”
“Riss,” he said, holding out a hand to placate her. “I did speak up. Or I tried to, but you decided it would be best to try and use your little electrical device on me.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Excuse me? Are you accusing me of jumping the gun?”
To his surprise, and evidently hers as well, he laughed.
“What the hell’s so funny, mister?” she snapped, hands on her hips.
Shaking his head, Zander fought to restrain himself. “I’m sorry,” he sputtered. “It’s just that I couldn’t tell you how many times I have heard that line, but directed at myself.”
It was her turn to arch an eyebrow, inviting further explanation.
“Apparently,” he said, acting like he didn’t believe it, “I am prone to rash action and snap decisions, without thinking it all the way through.”
Riss rolled her eyes. “Sure you are. You seem pretty stoic and thinking to me.”
“Well, Riss Levion, don’t take this personally, but you are a human, and I am a dragon. You can’t hold me to your standards.”
The perky little girl—no, woman, he corrected—rocked back on her heels, brown hair with black streaks bouncing around her shoulders as she did. Zander watched with keen interest as her intriguing gray eyes thought about his words, applying an intelligence to them that he was beginning to suspect few realized she had.
“Are you really that different than humanity?” she asked slowly. “After all, you are part human.”
“It’s simply a matter of perspective,” he explained as they stood there in the alleyway. “When your lifespan is measured in centuries, not decades, you begin to lose your sense of urgency. When I was young, the human side of me ruled even more so than it does now. But as I’ve aged, I have mellowed. I think. Not that my fellow dragons would likely agree,” he joked.
Riss smiled. “I can understand that, I guess. Intellectually at least.”
“Excellent.”
“And,” she hesitated. “I’m sorry for Tasing you.” She winced.
“I am unharmed,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “So all is forgiven.”
“Why are you here though?” she asked.
“To walk you home.”
“Why?”
He paused, not having anticipated the question. “For your safety, of course.”
Riss looked at him, and slowly, with exaggerated motions, released the leads from her Taser, letting them fall to the ground. Then she reached into her bag, fumbling around for a moment before she pulled out a replacement pair. They snapped into place, and she waved it around menacingly.
“I’m okay,” she said with a tight smile. “But thank you. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Zander made to protest, but she was already walking down the alleyway, heading in the opposite direction. He sighed and waited, counting to twenty, and then started out after her.
This time he sneaked along.
He wasn’t sure where she lived, but he could hazard a guess that based on where they were in town, and the direction she was heading, that Riss lived in the northeast quadrant. Not the best part of town, though Cadia was too small to have a truly seedy area. Besides, the Guardians patrolled everywhere fairly regularly. Crime was infrequent.
Tonight will be different though.
He kept her in sight, or just out of it, following her down streets and through alleys as she made her way home.
If it was going to happen, it would happen—
“Hold it right there.”
A male voice echoed between the two brick buildings up ahead, and he heard Riss gasp in surprise. “Who are you? What do you want?” he heard her ask.
“The money.”
Zander nodded. He’d thought as much.
“What money?” Riss asked, and he heard the slightest waver in her voice. “Hey, back up!” she said, and the threat was clear. She must have pulled her Taser on him.
“Hand it over, now,” the voice repeated. “I won’t ask again.”
Okay, that’s just about enough.
Zander began to creep forward, hoping to get as close as he could before anything else happened.
The snap-buzz of her Taser sounded and he realized things were escalating faster than he’d planned.
With a growl he stepped forward, out of the shadows and into the light, ten feet behind Riss. She was still backing away from the shifter, her Taser dragging uselessly on the ground.
“That is enough,” he ground out, his voice low but threatening, a whipcord snapping through the night.
The shifter came to an immediate halt.
“Who the hell are you?” he snapped.
Wolf. Typical.
“A Guardian,” he replied through gritted teeth, doing his best not to dart forward and rip the man in two.
In front of him, Riss turned to look at him with newfound respect in her smoky gray orbs.
“Now that’s funny. Get going before you get hurt,” the man snarled.
Zander shook his head. Clearly the wolf didn’t realize what he was up against.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked in a casual conversational tone.
“I will be if you don’t beat it.”
The dragon shifter turned to Riss. “He threatened you, and now he’s threatening me. Am I reading this situation correct?”
Her brown eyebrows furrowed together as she pursed her lips. “Maybe, but what does that mean? What are you going to do?”
“He’s not going to do anything. Now hand over the money.”
The wolf had produced a knife from somewhere and began to wave the six-inch tempered steel blade at both of them.
“Okay, that’s a threat no matter what anyone says,” Zander explained.
“What happens now?” Riss asked, no trace of nerves in her voice now.
“Now,” Zander said, his voice dropping deeper as he turned to face the unknown assailant. “I deal with the situation.”
He moved, his legs a blur as he closed on his opponent. The wolf shifter was quick, and the knife whipped around to stab at Zander, but he was no longer there, spinning inside the wolf’s grip. His left elbow came up around and smashed into the left side of the man’s face, while his right hand clamped on the wrist holding the knife, and squeezed.
The attacker screamed and dropped the knife.
Zander thought the fight over, until a knee came up and took him in the back, numbing his spine as he
fell to the ground from the unexpected blow.
More fight in him than I gave him credit for. Won’t make that mistake a second time.
Shaking off the feeling, Zander got to his feet just as the wolf jumped at him.
There was something about the way he jumped that was off, but Zander didn’t recognize it until he was plowed over by a massive midnight-black wolf with silver streaks through it.
“Right. Quick shift attack,” he muttered, grabbing the animal by the ribcage before it could do anything else and hurling it into the brick wall next to him.
The wolf yelped and Zander followed up by rolling to his feet and delivering a kick that snapped the wolf’s head back before it could recover.
Three-inch-long fangs snapped at him, but he dodged out of range, and then flew back in with a fist that jerked the head around. Yellow eyes rolled up into his head and the wolf collapsed to the ground with a limp thud.
Zander collected himself, still shaking off the last of the numbness in his spine as he stood up, wiping his hands on his pants.
“Can I walk you home?” he asked once more as he faced her.
“Yeah, you know what? Suddenly that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea,” she said with a slightly jerky nod.
He moved up alongside her, bringing her inside his personal space, where he could protect her best.
“It will be okay,” he reassured her, noting a slight wobble in her steps.
“I… I know,” she replied. “I’ve been threatened before, but just never quite so seriously. They usually back off. And then you, with the punches, and holy shit.”
He readied himself to snag her waist if she lost control, but once again, strength greater than her flimsy human body looked like it possessed showed through. Riss shook herself and stood up straight.
“So, you’re a Guardian,” she said after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Why were you so reluctant to tell me that earlier?” she asked, pointing in the direction they had to go as the narrow passage between buildings opened up into a street intersection.
“I wasn’t reluctant,” he said.
Riss sighed. “You didn’t answer my question though. When I asked you earlier in the shop, you avoided answering by instead asking a question of your own. Why not just answer?”