by Sharon Page
Was he going to try to get out? Was the window locked? She had never checked and James had reached the curtains. Velvet billowed around him as he tried to scuttle between them, and he got tangled. It gave her the time to reach him, and to grab him up in her arms. She held him against her chest, and he squirmed like a wriggling piglet. She had seen men try to hold piglets, and it had looked nearly as impossible as keeping James secured.
He almost fell out of her grasp. She grabbed him more firmly, and suddenly realized her fingers were too tight.
Then she was stunned. His skin, where she held him, was heating up. It was growing scorching hot, as hers did before she transformed.
“No!” the boy shouted loudly, something he had not done since she’d been in his room. “No! No! It hurts!”
She had lightened her grip, and drawn him against her chest, and she could feel his flesh move as his muscles and bone changed beneath. She could feel the quivers and trembles.
He was sobbing with pain and fear.
What was happening? She had not changed shape for the first time until she had been much, much older. Until she had been almost a woman. Boys did not shift shape until they were almost fully grown also.
The boy screamed in anguish and thrashed in her arms.
Stunned with shock, Lucy managed to stroke his forehead. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It will stop.”
She felt his arms and legs stretch and become longer. She felt the poor child’s back pulsate, getting ready to form wings.
James cried, “I hate it! Hate it! Make it stop.”
Could she? “Try very hard to make yourself small, James.” Would that keep his body from expanding and growing? How exactly did she stop it? She didn’t know. She had just tried and tried and eventually she’d managed to gain control. “Your body wants to change and turn into a dragon. Try to think about staying as you are now.”
Crying desperately, he was tense and shivering in her arms.
But she couldn’t stop it, and he transformed and she held a small dragon in her arms. His wings beat fervently and his tail thrashed. As a dragon, he could not cry, but he made a pitiful mewling sound.
She cradled him. She stroked over his smooth scales, so much softer than hers. The spikes along his back poked into her arms, but she did not care about that. The poor sweet needed comforting. “Shh,” she murmured. “It will be all right.”
What foolish words. It hurt her to change—how must it have felt to James? Why was he changing now, when he was so young? What did it mean?
He let out a high-pitched roar that was more of a squeak, and in moments she held a shaking little boy in her arms again. His hair was damp with sweat and stuck to his forehead. Smoothly, she brushed it back.
“Has anyone told you why you do that, James?” she asked gently. “Do you understand that you are very special? That you can change into a dragon?”
“Not special.” He sniffled and shook his head. “Told me I am a beast.”
“Who told you that?” she asked, too sharply, for his lip quivered. Much more softly, she said, “That is not true, James. I am just like you—I can turn into a dragon. A bigger one than you, of course, because I am bigger.”
His head had tipped back and he watched her, eyes goggling and his mouth wide open. Lucy set him on his feet and held his hand firmly. She led him to the large wing chair and placed him on it. He curled his legs underneath him and stared at her.
“You sit there and watch me. Do not move, and I will show you what I can do.”
He stuck out his lower lip. She took two steps back, then she willed her body to change. She tried to not grimace and cry out as her body stretched and grew and rearranged. When she was finished, she bowed her head to James and flicked her tongue across his forehead.
“A dragon. Like me.”
She nodded. She kept her wings tight to her body and she flicked her tongue playfully. The smile on the child’s face was her reward. She stayed close to the floor so she would look long, but not tall and frightening. She waited, watching how his eyes showed increasing curiosity. He cocked his head as he examined her face, then he slid off the seat and tentatively put his hand to her scales. She let him stroke her. He made a murmuring sound in his throat. With her muzzle, she nudged him back toward the chair. He clambered dutifully back on it, and she transformed back. Now she could speak to him.
“Yes, James, I am just like you. I know it does hurt to change. Now come and let me make you feel better.”
She held out her hand. The small blond boy slid off the seat, came to her, and placed his tiny hand in hers. His hand was warm, damp. She could tell his fingers would eventually be long and graceful like his uncle’s. The thought of Sinjin brought guilt roaring up.
James did need help to cope with being a dragon—but to be taken from his family, kept here and frightened, was not the answer.
She walked James back to the vanity and set to tidying him up. Carefully, she tried to coax information from him. She wanted to know why he could shift shape at such a young age. Of course, he couldn’t explain enough for her to figure out why.
But she did learn from his descriptions that it must hurt him more to shift than it hurt her.
Was this why Father had brought him here? Was it not to help the boy, but to study him?
What could she do to help James?
And could she return him to Sinjin? She had no idea what it meant that James could already shift shape. Beyond the pain the boy felt, was it dangerous for him? Could it hurt him? Make his life shorter? She did not have any answers. Was there anyone in her clan who would?
Even if there was, would Sinjin trust anyone in her clan—other than her—to help?
Sinjin awoke as soon as the sun dropped. His body sensed the darkness. He pushed the covers off him. It had interested him, yesterday, to discover the bedrooms of the house were all kept in readiness. But right now, there was only James here, along with the housekeeper Billings, maids, two footmen, a couple of men to do gardening, and a groom. Mrs. Billings had been evasive when he had asked whether the bedchambers had been used by people who had just left, or if they were ready in anticipation of people arriving.
Sinjin swung out of bed, yanked on his trousers, his shirt. He pulled on his boots. Damn. He should have thought of hunger. His body shook with the need for blood.
Rain pounded at the window. He was going to have to go out and hunt for blood. He did not want to feed in the house. In country houses, it was easy enough to lure a maid, making her believe she was to receive kisses, but he didn’t do that sort of thing anymore. It would hurt Lucy. And the maid would tell her tale, which would lead to servants and local villagers pursuing him with torches and pitchforks. The way other vampires survived was to kill each person they drank from. Dead prey did not tell stories.
Hell, he couldn’t do it. He could not drink from some innocent in the house, or even in the nearby village. But what in hell was he going to do?
There was Lucy ...
Would she let him take some of her blood, sating his appetite for a while? He could do it without hurting her, and it would protect the people of her household from him.
Could he make such a request of her? Deep in his heart, he knew she would allow him to do it—she would do it to protect others. Likely she would also be sickened by it.
Wasn’t that a good thing? He should want her to hate him. It would make what he had to do so much easier.
The high-pitched squeak of James’s giggles stopped Sinjin in his tracks. He paused at the top of the stairs to the upper floor. He had come in search of the nursery—Billings had told him Lucy had brought the boy up here because toys remained in the nursery from when Lucy had been a child.
A clattering sound came, obviously blocks tumbling across a wood plank floor. Lucy’s voice came to him. “Goodness, you little scamp. You asked me to build a castle and you’ve knocked it down before I could finish.”
James cackled gleefully in respons
e.
Sinjin had to grip the banister. Since the death of his sister, he had never heard James laugh. Not once. Now the boy was shrieking with merriment and commanding Lucy, “Make it again! Do it again!”
“And you will knock it down again, won’t you?” Lucy’s tones were teasingly suspicious.
“Won’t!” James declared. “Won’t! Promise!”
He had never heard James so happy even when Emma was alive. When Emma had been brought back by the slayers, she always found time spent with James to be a strain. His exuberance as a toddler had given her headaches and made her cry. She had always waved at nurses to take the boy away. Sinjin knew the grief she carried had hurt her ability to mother the boy.
But Lucy had done miracles with James. Hell, it didn’t seem possible that Lucy could be a dragon. She was too ... too human, too good, too warmhearted and sweet.
His heart felt lodged in his throat as he ran up the last of the stairs, and he followed James’s uncontrollable giggles to the nursery. His nephew sat in a small rocking chair, waving his arms like an imperious monarch. Lucy, on her knees with skirts tucked beneath them, built another castle to the demands of the little tyrant.
Sinjin grinned. It proved to be as sweet a sight as he’d imagined. Lucy stacked block upon block, and frowned as she lined them up to sit precisely upon each other. But despite her care, the tower of blocks swayed precariously. When it did, James squealed with laughter.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Sinjin leaned against the door frame. Lucy exaggerated her expressions—drawing her eyebrows harshly together as she slowly lowered the next block. She gasped and quivered as the tower threatened to topple. James giggled in delight.
She went to put on the next block, the tower now to the height of her shoulder. But her knee snagged in her skirts. Lucy waved her arms wildly, and lurched perilously close to the tower. James’s green eyes were as big as dinner plates as her body wove back and forth. Her chest would almost knock the tower, then she swayed back, only to swing toward the tower again. James squealed with excitement.
Sinjin shook his head.
She was delightful. Amazing.
Lucy did things to his heart he had never felt before... .
Or at least not since he’d been a boy, not much older than James, not since he had lost his family.
Lucy stopped her rocking with her chin over the tower and her arms spread wide. James was thoroughly enthralled. Sinjin was, too. Then she twitched her nose, as though she was going to sneeze. Her arm flew up to her nose, and she hit the tower on the way. Blocks flew everywhere and James laughed and laughed. He flopped on his tummy and kicked his legs laughing.
Then Lucy, picking up blocks, saw Sinjin. “Oh! Sinjin.”
James leapt off the chair. “Uncle!” he cried. And the boy barreled toward him.
Not since Emma’s death had his nephew rushed at him, acting like a happy, normal boy. Normally he had to go to James. And when he put his arms around James, he had to coax the boy to speak to him, to smile.
Stopping in front of Sinjin’s legs, James pointed at Lucy. “She is a dragon, just like me,” he said, in a proud voice, one filled with self-importance. “But her wings are bigger and she has a big, long tail and she can use it to tickle me.”
“Can she?” His throat was so tight, he could only manage to get out the two words. He—a slayer—was close to disgracing himself by crying. Then he blinked. “You have changed into dragon form, James? You grew wings and a tail? And scales?”
The boy nodded solemnly. His golden hair fell in tousled curls around his face, and these bounced as he firmly agreed.
Sinjin reeled back. He rocked back on his heels for a moment, then he fought to behave normally. He hadn’t known anyone could shift shape so young, but apparently his nephew could. He had been taught that dragons only began to shift when their bodies matured into adult size. This was something unusual. Something strange.
Why was it happening to James?
Was that why the late Earl of Wrenshire had taken his nephew? Not to use the boy as a hostage and force a truce with the slayers, but to study a dragon who was unlike every other shape-shifting dragon that had been born?
Was this why his prince had agreed to let the boy live?
“Sinjin?”
Lucy’s soft voice, filled with concern, made him jerk around. He had so many things to keep secret from her, so he tried to remove the worry that must be showing on his face. He gave her a grin and a wink. “So Lucy changed into a dragon for you. Did she breathe fire?”
“No.” James shook his head fiercely. “She would have set fire to the curtains if she had done that. Maybe even the bed.”
He scooped James up. “We cannot have that, can we?”
“No.” James pressed his head to Sinjin’s shoulder. The boy’s slim arms wrapped around his neck. Ah, how could such a small boy make him feel so weak?
“I’m sleepy, Uncle Jin.”
Sinjin saw Lucy’s brows raise. James had never quite grasped his name, a variation of “Saint John.” He had been named for a man his mother had considered a savior. A dragon slayer of legend named John, whom all the people of his village had called a saint.
“Then it is bedtime for you.”
Lucy smiled her approval. Her wide mouth lifted in a gentle curve. For a moment, the scene felt eerily domestic. Once, a lifetime ago, his father would lift him to carry him to bed. And he remembered his mother humming songs, smiling at him.
Then the dragons had come... .
Lucy was a dragon ... and it was the fact that she could turn into a dragon, too, that had been the very thing that had broken through to James.
He carried James to bed, with Lucy following, carrying a candle. Maids rushed forth when they reached the boy’s bedroom, and they helped change him into a small nightshirt. He shooed the girls away, and tucked in his nephew himself.
How had Lucy managed to help the boy so much in just one day?
Sinjin sat on the side of the bed, stroking James’s soft hair until the boy fell asleep. Behind him, he heard soft breaths. They belonged to Lucy.
Sinjin turned to her, intending to ask her how she had worked her miracle. But her hand strayed to her neck, and smoothed along the white column, massaging her delicate skin.
Hunger rose in him like a wave. It clutched at his heart. Swamped his head. Made sweat bead on his brow. His normally slow heartbeat became a roar in his ears. God ...
“Lucy, love, I need to feed. If I promise I will not hurt you, will you let me take some of your blood? Just a taste, sweeting.”
The words had come out on their own, raspy and desperate, and he couldn’t take them back now.
She gasped and took a sharp step back, away from him.
Christ, what had he just done? He’d seen her throat and lost control of his tongue.
Now he was losing control of his fangs. His mouth tingled, then two sharp jabs of pain shot through his jaw as his fangs launched out and lengthened.
13
Revealed
“You are asking me if you can drink my blood?”
Sinjin winced at the cold, emotionless way Lucy asked the question. She hugged herself, even though a fire roared in James’s room. Her face went pale.
“I’m sorry, my dear, and I should not have asked you. Certainly, not so bluntly.” He tried to sound light, as though he had asked her to dance, not bite her throat and drink her blood. In London, he subsisted on animal blood drunk from a glass, and there were brothels that catered to vampires—sating their cravings for blood or for pleasure, or both. How many people had he fed from before he managed to learn to control his feeding? More than he wanted to count. Each victim had struggled and screamed. At the very beginning, he hadn’t been able to stop taking blood, and he had seen the faces of his victims, contorted in terror and agony.
He saw the same horror etched in Lucy’s lovely face. It hit him like a blade—or a stake—through his heart. “But I have to feed,” h
e added. He kept his voice soft, but he heard the note of grim resignation. “And I didn’t want to be driven to take blood from the servants. Instead, I will find the nearest village. In places like these—isolated places—people trade stories of vampires all the time.”
“No.”
Lucy spoke quietly, but with decision. He searched her beautiful dark blue eyes for fear, for horror, for hatred. But she gazed at him calmly, now. Before he had read her thoughts, but he could not do it now.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“Yes. You cannot go out on the moors and attack people as though you are some sort of beast. Anyway, it would do no good to terrify local villagers. I don’t want them to chase me with burning torches.”
He was about to try for a teasing remark when she shivered and stated, “Nor do I want people chasing you, wanting to stake you or set you on fire.”
Christ. She was worried about protecting him. Yet at the end of this, when he had James safe, he was supposed to kill her.
She traced the neckline of her bodice. His throat dried as he watched her fingertip follow the scoop against creamy flesh.
“All right,” she said. “I will let you do this. But not here, not when James could awaken.”
She squared her shoulders and faced him with her chin tipped up. He remembered the first night she had come to him and offered her body in place of her brother’s debts. She had made the same motions—she had straightened her spine, lifted her chin. Then, he’d been amused by her stubbornness, her pride. Now he was touched by her bravery.
“Would you like a drink first? Brandy for a touch more courage?” Sinjin asked softly.
She shook her head, and as she did, he moved to her side. Scooping her into his arms, he carried her out. The winds howled tonight, buffeting the house, rattling windowpanes.
The two maids were in the hall, speaking in low voices. They stopped abruptly as they saw him approaching, carrying Lucy in his arms. He lifted his brows, and they scurried away.
He carried Lucy to her bedchamber. His fangs were out, brushing his lower lip.