He helped me get upright and supported me on my good shoulder, letting me walk around the room and look at the amazing floor, and the way the walls and floor seemed to meet seamlessly. I went into the bathroom and had to wonder about plumbing. Who did they call if they needed something snaked? And did they tie in to the public water system? If not where did the water come from? All these questions that I wanted literal answers for when, truthfully, there were probably no answers beyond it’s magic.
I came back out of the bathroom under my own power, but it only took a couple of turns around the room for me to realize that I didn’t feel well at all. Bahlin got me back into bed. My shoulder felt hot and stiff and I was getting light-headed.
“Maddy, I want to lift the bandages off so I can see the wound, okay?” He wiped the sweat from my forehead with a rag that seemed to have appeared in his hand.
“Fine, but don’t look at my goods.” I tried to smile, but the look on Bahlin’s face said that whatever the smile had actually translated to was scary.
“Sweetheart, you’re in no shape for me to check out your goods.” He looked me over from head to toe and then said, “But the time will come when that’s all we have to do, for hours upon hours.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, Bahlin,” I whispered, feeling the pull of sleep.
“Of course I’m sure of myself. Who could resist this?” He smiled with forced cheer, making a sweeping pass across his chest and abs with his hand.
I laughed a little, and that seemed to make him feel better. “Of course you’d think so,” I replied and I settled back into the pillows more thoroughly. “But that gives me the personal challenge to resist, and you know I don’t deal with so well with those, personal challenges, these days.”
“Point taken, and statement struck from the conversation,” he said, his smile revealing a single dimple.
He bent over me, lifting the shirt over my stomach and off my left shoulder, gently beginning to peel back the tape and gauze from the wound. I looked down and realized his eyes had changed color. I slapped my good hand over my left breast and glared at him.
“Bahlin, tell me that your kind doesn’t eat people, because you’ve got this weird look on your face…”
“Maddy, I’m old enough that I can resist the draw of meat which, incidentally, is what you are.”
I stiffened and glared at him, daring him to say it again.
“Don’t take offense, love. Dragons have eaten people in the past, so it’s only natural that my physiology recognizes the potential.” His smile softened at my obvious concern. “I’ll not ravage your wound or attack your person. I promise, though, that last will cost me in personal comfort.”
I skipped the sexual innuendo. “Have you ever eaten people?” I felt a little foolish asking, but where had I ever had any kind of experience with dragons?
Bahlin ignored me and continued to peel the tape away and I felt the tape pull against my skin in a tight, uncomfortable way. When the air hit the wound I gasped, shocked at how painful it was.
“This isn’t good, Maddy,” Bahlin muttered, shaking his head and leaning in close to the torn flesh. He sniffed me like he was some sort of preternatural bloodhound. “It doesn’t smell right. It should be healing but it’s getting infected somehow. Maddy?”
“Hmm?” I was so drowsy. I wished Bahlin would get closer to me so I could smell him again.
“Maddy, something’s wrong. I need to heal this wound quickly. Do you understand?”
“Understand what? I don’t heal like you guys do. I don’t—”
“No, but I can temporarily give you some of my ability to heal the wound. Maddy.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“Fine, fine, fine. Whatever.” My head rolled around on my shoulders like a broken doll’s. “That’s right. You were a doctor. Makes sense now.” The room swam in and out of focus, the light seeming both too bright and too dim to see by.
I rolled my head toward Bahlin and saw him bend toward my shoulder. He snaked his tongue out and my eyes struggled to focus. His tongue was forked. I made a feeble effort to pull away from him, alarmed at how quickly I’d deteriorated after my short stroll around the room.
Bahlin took a deep breath and said in a rumbling voice, “This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch, Maddy. Apologies, love.” Then he struck, shoving his tongue into the wound and breathing heat into it.
“Oh what the hell,” I yelled, snapping out of my stupor with the pain of the dragon’s strike. It felt like the wound was being burned from the inside out and I screamed, unable to bear the agony with any measure of stoicism. Bahlin bore down with clawed fingertips, holding me as steady as he could while I renewed my efforts to fight him off, thrashing about on the bed. It was useless. I was consumed by fire in his embrace.
Time became irrelevant, with seconds feeling like hours, minutes like days. The heat from his mouth became incrementally cooler by comparative day number seven, and I began to feel as if I’d survive after all. Several more minutes passed and Bahlin lifted his head, sweating and weaving a bit, retracting his claws from where they had pierced my skin. I watched as those same claws shimmered and returned to a man’s hands, Bahlin’s hands.
“Well done, sweetheart, well done.” His voice was lazy, his eyes unfocused. Apparently whatever had poisoned my bloodstream had rendered him slightly drunk. Fan-damn-tastic.
“Bahlin? Bahlin?” I returned the favor, snapping my fingers under his nose. He looked at me and smiled with such innocence, and I was hit with a wave of his scent. He leaned in and moved as if to kiss me when I remembered his forked tongue. I turned my head, and he made contact with my cheek.
“Be a love and give us a kiss.” His voice was lazy and seductive, deeper than normal.
Something low in my belly clenched, and it pissed me off. I wasn’t kissing the us to whom he referred. Did his dragon think like a second, individual person? I wondered. Ultimately it was irrelevant. Angry without understanding exactly why, I said, “This should sound familiar—bugger off.”
“You kiss blokes with that mouth?”
“You kiss the girls with that forked tongue?”
He reacted as if I’d slapped him. His eyes became clearer, and he took a sloppy step backward. “Beautiful,” he snapped, “just bloody beautiful. You’re welcome.”
I cringed and rolled away from him, embarrassed to have behaved so ungratefully. But I couldn’t seem to find it in myself to apologize. He’d crossed some invisible line I hadn’t know I had. I’d begun to see him as a man, a very desirable man, and he had ruined that fantasy for me. Now the monster seemed to overlay the whole of him, and I couldn’t see around it.
“You’d best get up and get a shower if yeh’re wantin’ one,” Bahlin said in a hard, brogued voice. “Tarrek will be back soon with clothes, I’m sure.”
I bit my cheek, turning back toward him to apologize when I saw my shoulder. There was a pucker of pink scar tissue and the area around it was bruised and looked like I had a huge hickey. But the shoulder appeared fine, if a little stiff. My eyes sought his as my finger gently poked at the healed wound, and he stared at me without blinking.
“You did this? With just your breath?”
He gave a sardonic grin. “Oh no, fair lady. No’ joost me breath but me bloody forked tongue, a bit o’ saliva and a little controlled fire, as weel.” His tone was so acidic it could have blistered the paint off a car.
“Look, cut me some slack, o-oh shit.” I flipped the covers off my legs and slid to the floor, my knees only slightly wobbly. “Oh, man.” I yanked Bahlin’s shirt back on with unsteady hands.
“What?” he asked, striding toward me, gripping my shoulder and spinning me to face him. I cringed, and he dropped his hand. “Do yeh think I’d strike ye? By the gods, woman! I’ve no’ hit a woman since the Dragons’ Conquest of 1712, and that was war.” He threw his hands in the air and spun on his heel, stomping toward the bedroom door.
“Stop,” I cried, a
nd he froze. “Please, don’t leave, Bahlin,” I said. “I think I was poisoned.”
“Shot and then poisoned? Yeh’re the unluckiest of people.” His brogue softened a syllable at a time until it dissolved. He turned back to face me. “Wait. Are you serious?” He walked toward me slowly.
“I’m dead—ha—serious.” I took a couple of steps toward him so we met in the middle of the room.
“Tell me.”
“Tarrek was in the room when I woke up. I asked for something to drink, and he gave me some blue stuff that the healer left for me and then the whole thing happened about finding Maddox and then you showed up.”
“I didn’t just show up, Maddy. I’ve been here the three days you’ve been knocked out.”
“You waited for me? Why?”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.
“Oh yeah,” I said, “the promise to Aloysius.” Why make more of it than it is, right?
“Sure. That’s it,” he whispered, stepping closer to me. “Go on.”
I pulled my fingers through my hair, tugging on the ends trying to stimulate my still sluggish brain. “Um, Tarrek went to get you, you guys came back and then…then… Where is Tarrek?”
Tarrek came back into the room more than two hours later. It had given Bahlin and I a chance to talk and for me to take a short nap. Regardless of Bahlin’s contribution to my healing process, I was still human and incredibly tired.
“A death warrant has been issued for Maddox.” Tarrek’s eyes were drawn and grief etched hard lines around his mouth and eyes. “He’ll be killed on sight.”
I felt so sorry for him, but I was afraid to extend my sympathy lest he remember it was sort of my doing. So I stuck to the case. “I take it he hasn’t been found then.”
“The sithen has been searched. He’s not here.” Tarrek sat in a chair closest to the bed and looked at me, his hand absently reaching for the dirk. He took a deep breath as if to say something and he froze mid-motion, his eyes suddenly sharpened. “What have you been doing this afternoon, Maddy?”
Aw, crap. Looked like I’d get to smell that yummy testosterone smell again after all. “I’ve been healing, thanks. Bahlin made a small contribution to me healing the wound and it’s better. See?” I flapped my arm as I had earlier. He stared at me.
“Do you understand what you’ve done? How you’ve potentially tied yourself to him?” he demanded, rising from the chair and approaching the bed.
“Take it down a notch, Tarrek. Why are you so upset?”
“Yes, Tarrek,” Bahlin said, standing from the room’s other chair near the door, “what’s got you so upset, mate?” He looked lethal in his jeans and sneakers. And where Tarrek has stormed toward me, Bahlin moved like a large, lethal predator as he came toward us. Tarrek didn’t give ground.
“You know what you can do by exchanging resources with the Niteclif,” Tarrek said, his voice going deeper than I’d ever heard it.
“Mind yourself, Tarrek. Nothing’s happened. There was no exchange, only a very minor contribution on my part.” Bahlin turned his back on Tarrek and walked back to the chair he’d been sitting in.
“What can happen?” I asked, suddenly worried. Had I done something irrevocable? I sat up in bed, tugging the covers more securely around my hips and finger-combing my hair yet again. “Seriously, what’s going to happen?”
Bahlin scowled at Tarrek and said, “Nothing, love. There’s been no exchange to speak of. It can happen that if a Niteclif and an immortal exchange power that the two become bound.”
“Bound how?” I demanded.
Tarrek sighed and Bahlin addressed him. “Why don’t you go on and explain it to her now that you’ve got her disturbed?”
“I’m sorry, Maddy, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Tarrek pushed his hands into his pants pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Sometimes the two, the supernatural being and the Niteclif, can become bound to each other. The supe either becomes mortal or the Niteclif become immortal. It has happened twice before, with one of each result. But it’s rare, you understand.”
I refused to deal with this right now, no matter how relevant it was to my future. I was so close to unraveling, my mind began to compartmentalize—cope with this, ignore that.
Still wearing Bahlin’s shirt, I swung my legs out of the bed and slid to the floor. “I need some pants and a better shirt. Is there any chance I could get set up?” I asked Tarrek.
“Sure, Maddy. I apologize for not seeing to you earlier. It’s been a trying afternoon.” And just like that, his grief was back.
I padded over to him, barefoot on the marble, which was surprisingly neither cool nor warm, like lukewarm water is neither hot nor cold. I laid my hand on his arm and said, “I’m so sorry, Tarrek. I didn’t mean to cause you or your family any heartache.”
He laid his other hand over mine. His eyes glowed a little and I realized that strong emotion would do that, make them blaze like two gems set into his face. “You did your job, Maddy, and it appears you’ve made your choice. Both were impressive to see, if hard to accept.” With that he swept out of the room, not speaking to Bahlin again.
Tarrek was gone for a while, returning having changed into more formal clothes of his own and carrying a gown for me. It wasn’t what I would have chosen. He brought me a lovely dress that was more appropriate for a Celtic festival than it was for fighting crime. But I didn’t initially complain too loudly. Beggars and choosers and that whole lot.
Tarrek looked reserved yet shy as he handed me the green dress. “Bahlin was allowed to dress you in his dream walk. I’d dress you, even just once, in reality.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. He handed me the garment, and it was softer than anything I’d ever touched except the jacket he’d given me. The fabric was fluid like Tencel but even lighter without being see-through. The dress had an empire waist and buttoned down the back, though with luck I’d be able to simply pull it on over my head. The scooped neck would show my cleavage to great advantage but probably leave the fabric tight enough to bounce a quarter off of since it didn’t seem to stretch. The length of the dress left it brushing the tops of my feet when I held it up to me. The shoes he handed me were soft, doe-colored ballet slippers but they were leather all around, no real soles. I accepted the clothes and was grateful to head into the bathroom and shut the door.
Both of these men were freaking gorgeous, but neither of them was attached. Problem number one—why didn’t they already have women in their lives?
Both had maneuvered themselves close to me from the beginning. Problem number two—what did they hope to gain by being close to me and to this investigation?
Both of them had stuck around after I’d been wounded. Problem number three—who were they trying to protect me from and why hadn’t they owned up to the truth about it?
And finally, neither had answered the biggest question I wanted to know but was afraid to ask. Problem number four—had either of them been the man at the stone circle four nights ago who had watched me drive away?
I turned on the shower and adjusted the water temperature to hot and just this side of scalding. I felt grungy from not having bathed since that first night at the hotel. The shower was divine, and I scrubbed until my skin was pink and glowing. I stepped out of the shower and toweled off, running the problems through my head over and over, then tried combining the problems I had with the men with the limited facts I had from the case. No clear picture emerged on either front. I left it alone for the moment. Compartmentalization at its best.
I dressed, did the best I could with my hair, then stepped out into the bedroom. Both men stared at me like I had something on my face. I ran my hands down the front of the dress and their gazes followed my hands. I stopped. So did their collective gazes. The back of my neck felt hot, and I wondered what the hell they were staring at.
“You, Maddy, we’re staring at you,” Bahlin said.
“How did you know what I was thinking?” I shifted fr
om foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable.
“I didn’t. Your discomfort is all over your face. It isn’t hard to put the pieces together.” He stood up and backed away from me, side-stepping down the wall toward the door in the face of my unfolding temper. He apparently remembered my right hook.
Tarrek had walked up behind me. He laid a hand on my shoulder and I jumped, turning to face him. “Why have you dressed me like a doll? I need work clothes, not a party dress,” I whispered in a hard voice. I was tugging at my hair again, agitated.
He dropped his hand and eyed me coolly. “You’ll meet both my parents, who are king and queen, as well as the High Council tonight. The Council has been summoned to the sithen as a whole for the first time in recorded history in an effort to make your life a little easier. You need to dress the part of the Niteclif for formal events, which this is. You can’t meet the Council in jeans and a T-shirt.” His voice rose slightly as if he were having a hard time not yelling.
“I have already met some of you in jeans and a T-shirt,” I snarled. Then I thought about what he said. This was a formal event. I needed to look the part.
I took a deep breath, and they apparently thought I was going to argue because Bahlin sighed and said, “For the love, Maddy, shut your trap before you dig a deeper hole for yourself.”
I stood there gaping at him, then burst out laughing. No one had ever said that to me before. In fact, no one had ever spoken to me as harshly as he just had. Of course, I didn’t think I’d ever behaved so ungratefully before so it hadn’t ever been necessary. I walked up to Bahlin and tugged his hand downward. He bent slightly, not sure whether to trust me or prepare to defend himself. And he was a dragon. Ha. I kissed his cheek. Then I turned and did the same to Tarrek. Apologies were hard when you were on the delivery side of things, but I was ashamed of my behavior.
Legacy: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 1 Page 9