by Alyse Zaftig
"Really? How far away are you from the nearest person, exactly? You know you probably shouldn't be so far out there, just in case you need to—"
"I needed the space. You know that," I cut her off, running my thumb along the rough edge of the windowsill, glancing through the sheer curtains. "It's been…nice."
There was a pause on the other end of the line before she sighed to herself. "I'm sure it has been, baby. Whatever you need to do to help yourself, you know I'm always behind you one hundred and ten percent." A quick intake of breath later, "Oh shit, I better get going. Mr. Bellamy wants me on tonight's shift."
"Okay, Mom. Call me when you can. Tell Desi and Coli I said I love them."
Sliding the phone back in my pocket, I let my thoughts wander back toward home. On one hand, I felt guilty for leaving for a whole month and using two months’ worth of my own paychecks to pay for this awesome deal of a trip. Colette was still too young to get a real job, and Desi went through waitressing jobs like I went through ear plugs. Being the oldest meant I had to be the responsible one.
Mom didn't have that hard a time making money to pay rent, not when she could predict the future in bits and pieces. Her abilities were usually strong, but sometimes they flickered, so she had to keep a steady job on top of the psychic hotline she worked for after hours. She could have worked anywhere, but my mom was a tried and true honest woman, and didn't believe in swindling people out of their money. It was the same pesky moral high ground she instilled in me, although sometimes I doubted Desi really grasped that part of our growing up.
I looked at the fat wad of Scottish notes in my wallet and tried to remind myself why I was here. It was only the first day…and I had barely done more than eat and relax in the cottage. Deciding to hang out at the cottage for the rest of the day, I pulled out the book I picked up at the airport and sat down in the armchair.
I had big plans. And they were all going to have to wait until tomorrow.
--
It was hard to say when I began to regret signing up for the walking tour—probably the moment I started to stray from the very obvious path, and refused to look anywhere else other than the looming fog rolling across the moor not far from us.
Or maybe it was when I turned around and saw that my tour guide was already much further down the road than I remembered, droning on about the climate of the Scottish Highlands in April. I could still hear his and the other few people’s inner voices. I decided to let that be my tether to my group, and continued walking in the opposite direction, amazed by how purple the heather was against the greenest grass I’d ever seen before.
With the exception of Central Park, I’d barely had the chance to enjoy nature for what it was. And as someone who felt the energy running between all living things, (this would be the part where Desi would quip about Mom’s woo-woo talk getting to my head) it surprised me to feel so right outside of my usual concrete box of a comfort zone.
The silence I was so happily getting used to was creeping back in, but stupid me forgot that I was actually using the noise to keep track of my group, and before I knew it, I was so far from the small village and my group, that I was lost.
I rolled my eyes at myself. “No, you’re not lost, you idiot. You just have to retrace your steps…” I mumbled to myself, turning back around.
But at some point on my way to where I was standing, I’d veered away from the trusty proximity of the looming mountain, and now I had no idea if retracing my steps would even help since I hadn’t been paying attention.
Some birds called out to each other overhead, and I watched with increasing worry as the light started to dip behind the mountain, a chill setting in almost immediately. It was spring for God’s sake! Why was it still so cold?
When the fog started rolling in, the tour guide’s voice echoed in the back of my head. The moors are not to be trifled with, as simple as they look. One step in the wrong spot and you’re up to your waist in mud and cold. It was getting harder to see the ground as plainly in front of me, and I tried to book it faster back the way I came but my legs were getting wobbly. I wasn’t exactly known for my enthusiasm of hiking back in Brooklyn.
I bit my lip, trying to keep calm with each step I took and pressed on, knowing there was no stopping.
I checked my phone, giving up on being the strong woman who could easily hike a few miles out of the way of civilization, but to my horror, there was no signal. It should’ve been a given considering where I was, but I had simply forgotten. I really was alone.
I sucked in a deep breath and locked down the panic that was threatening to spiral out of control inside me, when a noise startled me from behind. Spinning around on the soft ground, I clutched my small backpack closer to me. It has to be an animal or something. Maybe a cute little rabbit. Definitely not some lethally poisonous snake or anything.
The soft grass was definitely being trampled underfoot, and most definitely not by a little rabbit, or even a huge snake. It was something much, much bigger.
I froze. I was certain that if I just stood still, whatever was out there wouldn’t see me and would continue on its merry way. But this wasn’t exactly Jurassic Park, and finally across a particularly bare patch of ground, I saw the huge shadow.
Chapter 2
It was far too cold for someone to be out on the moors, much less by themselves. The fog was especially thick as it rolled over the wild green, where I could usually see more than just the length of my nose in front of me. On any other night I would’ve been enjoying it, probably taking a stroll through it, but the smaller shadow that dashed past the rocks to my left managed to spook me.
And let me tell you, it's no easy feat to spook a dragon.
The person's heartbeat was racing away in their chest, a feeble throb against the surrounding night pounding out the rhythm that every wild creature knew—fear. Deep inside me, something thrummed to life, stirring. Gritting my teeth, I hammered it down, reminding the damned beast that it wasn't full moon just yet. I still had a few more peaceful nights at least. One would think that after over a century of looking, the dragon would understand that I was no longer interested in mating with some would-be soul mate. Hell, I didn’t even believe in them in the first place. But the beast was always ready to get in the way at the first sign of a woman.
I took a few more steps in the direction I was already headed, pretending to not notice. I could've easily left the person there, it was their own foolish fault that they were stranded so close to the thick of the moor, after all. I'm no hero.
Something about the smaller being's heartbeat made me grunt to myself though. Damn it all to hell… I wouldn't be leaving until I'd made sure that the lucky bampot wasn't going to come down with pneumonia.
My dragon uncurled itself from in the back of my mind, listening carefully. It was far more invested than usual, but I just pushed that back too. "Hello?" I called out, cupping my hand to my mouth.
In the three seconds I was going to give myself before giving up and taking off, I heard a faint cry of relief. "Oh, thank God. I'm over here!"
The closer I got to the woman, the harder her heart beat in her chest. Without the moonlight casting its usual shadows on the fog, I couldn't make her out nearly as well as I would have on the night of a full moon.
"Are you okay? What in God's name are you doin' out here on your own?"
And suddenly she was there in front of me, tiny compared to my own mass. If I believed in the things, I'd have sworn she was a fairie. She came up to the top of my ribs, her smooth round face gleaming white like a beacon. I'd seen many a bonnie lass up and around these parts ever since I came to live here, but none like her. Her soft, darker eyes reminded me of a doe, and the layers of clothing she had draped around her made me think of a gypsy.
Well, it was certainly possible she was one. You can never be too sure of the gypsy folk.
The dragon inside was skulking about, eyeing her inch by inch with its narrowly slit eyes. It didn’t take it lo
ng to decide that she was perfectly acceptable to mate with, its aggravating pull to her enough to make me want to slap myself just for the sake of pissing it off.
She wiped at her nose, taking me in slowly until she must have come to the conclusion that I wasn't there to harm her. "I got separated from the tour." Her voice was without the usual lilt, marking her as a foreigner. I guessed American, my mind already wanting to crack a joke about city dwellers. Who else would think it wise to get lost in the moors?
I nodded, pursing my lips together out of rising concern for the way her lips seemed to be a shade too pale. Reminding myself I wasn't this woman's keeper, I jutted my thumb to the right. "Very well. Not sure how you could've pulled that one off, but this is the way you're wantin' to go. Follow me."
"I was just distracted. It was much easier to pull off than you'd think."
I ignored her, cutting through the path I usually took without bothering to look back and make sure she was keeping up. If she got herself lost a second time around, then bless her soul on the way to the pearly gates—there'd be no helping her.
"This way then," I mumbled, hearing her heartbeat close behind.
"Is it very far from the town? It didn't seem like I had walked that far.… She stumbled over the rocks until she was nearly walking next to me, pulling her layers of bundles around her even tighter. "Also…what are you doing out here, anyway? This doesn't seem like the kind of place that locals go wandering through at night."
I quirked a brow, still not looking at her. All I wanted to do was to get this woman back to wherever it was she was staying, and to head home. I could almost feel my bed calling my name.
"Well that's a solidly personal question, don't ya think? I'm no’ here because I like being out here. I’m here because it’s quiet," I grumbled, shaking my head.
The woman chuckled to herself. "Sorry. I didn't realize asking you why you were out in the middle of nowhere was a deeply personal question."
And a smart mouth, too? How lovely. "Look, I'm tryin’ to get you where you need to go. If you'd rather me take off and leave you here, I can do that too," I growled, no longer caring about being nice. If she didn’t want to be grateful for the help, then there was nothing more to say.
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I was just trying to make conversation. It's what I do when I'm freezing my ass off." She took a few more long strides to completely catch up, puffing along next to me. "That's all there is to do around here, right? Just walk around and enjoy the scenery?"
She groaned as her foot sank deep into mud, her boot coming back up with a loud squelch as she yanked it back out. Fighting the smug grin on my face was a losing battle.
"That's right, laugh it up. Poor little American girl, doesn't like getting dirty. Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but I hardly care. I would just rather not die out here in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles between me and any kind of civilization. Well, with the exception of you of course. Sorry…I'm probably rambling now. I'll just shut up and…"
This time I did laugh, unsure of how such a tiny thing could take in enough air to fill her lungs that full of words. "It's fine. It won't be that much further now. I'm…I'm Bram, by the way."
Maybe it wasn’t necessary to give her my name, but being in the odd situation that we were, I felt compelled to do it anyway. Most people in town didn't even know my real name. What was the point when they rarely saw me? I’d learned a long time ago that humans weren’t fond of anything they couldn’t understand.
"Oh. Well I'm Ella—Ella Daly. It's nice to meet you, Bram." Even in the dim lighting I could see a faint coloring blooming across her cheeks as we kept on moving.
Minutes passed before either one of us spoke back up, the silence something I've always enjoyed about the wilderness of my country, but the presence of a beautiful woman like Ella was a carefully unhinging thing. Even my dragon was having a hard time concentrating on keeping us due south back to the bridge.
For just a brief moment, I was transported back in time, to where a beautiful lass was spinning around in circles just off the same path that led us back. Little bits of wildflowers in her curly blonde hair. A grin that broke me every time I saw it. She went from spinning in lazy circles to standing in front of me with her arms folded, looking colder than murder. Her tan uniform with that ugly red armband—the only real truth I had learned about her.
Trusting anyone after her was damn near impossible. But my dragon ignored my broken memory, and instead envisioned this American woman writhing in bed underneath me, her perfectly round tits heaving as I slammed into her with a bed-shaking thrust.
Desperate not to encourage the bastard, I cleared my throat. "What brings you to Scotland?"
She hesitated, even stopping for a moment before collecting herself and sighing. "Quiet. I'm from New York City, so I don't get a whole lot of it as you can imagine."
"No, I can't imagine that you do. So that's it? You just want silence, then?"
Ella shook her head. "It's more than that, really. I just need to get away from everyone back home. It's the first time I've really been out anywhere on my own, and…I don't know why I'm telling you this. I mean maybe you just rescued me from the moor just to end up being a serial killer or something."
I snorted loudly, something that carried over even when I transformed. "Yep, you're definitely an American."
By the time we made it back to where the tours began, Ella was nearly out of breath, her forehead glistening with cold sweat. "Well, that was way more exercise than I had originally signed up for."
I looked around, surprised to see that more time had passed than I thought. "Where are you staying at, exactly?"
She looked at me dumbfounded, narrowing her eyes. "At the McKinley's cottage, up the ridge some. Why?"
I sighed, knowing that there was no way she'd be able to make it up and around the edge of the mountain to get to the other side in order to get back. "We have a bit of a problem."
I explained to her the issue only for Ella to slowly turn around, looking down from where we just came. "I don't understand. It can't be much farther up to the cottage. I mean the tour started at the hotel. And the cottage is only…what, a little over a mile further?"
Shaking my head, I wondered what the hell we were going to do now. I couldn't just leave her there, and it wasn't exactly like I could transform and fly her up to the cottage myself. I'm sure that would go over well with someone as neurotic as this lass seems.
"While that's true, the problem is that it's inaccessible to you right now. You'd have to go up around the other side and come back down that way. There's just no way you’re goin’ to get back to the cottage tonight is what I'm tryin’ to say here. Looks like you might have to book a room at the hotel in town."
Ella slumped against the hiking post, wiping at her forehead and looking straight ahead, something trembling in her voice. "I can't do that. I brought just enough money to rent the cottage, give myself food for the month, and maybe do a few things here and there. I certainly don't have the kind of money they're charging for a hotel room for the night."
It hit me just then that under the lamplight above us, I could make out Ella’s features better, seeing the way her small nose turned up at the very end, and how her dark eyes weren’t actually dark but more of a warm hazel color. She twisted her hands in the long mess of wavy brown hair of hers, securing it all together in a bunch with a rubber band. "I guess I'll just have to wait around for the fog to clear up then."
"Have you gone mad? That's the quickest way to getting sick out here, you ken? No, you're not to be doing that." And before I could clamp my mouth shut, my dragon whispered in the back of my head, coaxing me into something I knew I shouldn't have agreed to. "You can stay the night at my place."
Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she managed to squeak out a reply. "What? I'm sorry…I barely know you. I mean you seem nice enough and all but…”
I shook my head. "You can stay at my place. It's easier to g
et to from here and I have a couch you can sleep on. A few, actually."
I took in the sight of Ella somewhat speechless, her pretty face even more shocked than when I first found her. The dragon was whispering nonsensical things in the back my head, but I was putting my foot down. Even though looking at her and the way she kept licking her bottom lip nervously was definitely catching my attention in more ways than one, I was going to have to be good. I didn't want to take advantage or anything, even though it had been so long…
No. Humans aren't to be trusted. Whatever you think this will take shape as, is not happening, I growled back at the beast.
Stubborn as ever, my dragon refused to acknowledge my hesitancy with Ella staying over, even with the way I felt about humans in general, and helped plant some beautiful images of Ella on her knees in front of me, her small hands stroking at my length.
I could only imagine how big her eyes would get if she saw what she was in store for…
I closed my eyes. Stop putting words in my mind!
Clearing my throat before I lost control of the proper things I was about to say, I gestured to Ella. "So what do you say?"
Chapter 3
The hulking mass that was Bram turned to face me, his silvery eyes almost dancing under the faint moonlight as I stood up from the post. "So what do you say?"
What do I say? The things I wanted to say were so inappropriate that it hurt, but I sputtered out a "Yeah, okay." Ever the smooth one with men.
I found myself way quieter than before as I followed behind Bram, but that was probably because I wanted to…enjoy the view. His dark reddish hair was hanging damp from the fog, curling in on itself around the nape of his neck, distracting me. And this wasn't exactly the place to get distracted, trying to pick my way across the rocks jutting up from the ground.