by Bianca D'Arc
Urse picked up the phone in a bit of a temper at having been cut off before, but Mellie didn’t have time to waste placating her sister. “Where’s John?” Mellie asked over her sister’s annoyance.
“Why?” Urse immediately shut down the mini-tirade about being hung up on and switched tacks. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, but we need to talk to him right away,” Mellie told her sister.
“We?” Urse’s voice took on a suspicious tone. “You’re with Peter, aren’t you?”
Mellie sighed. “Yeah. I am. But that doesn’t change the fact that we need to find John.”
“No, you don’t,” Urse said, amusement in her voice now. “He’s here. He’s fixing that leaky sink in the downstairs bathroom.”
“Good,” Mellie said with relief. “Don’t let him leave. We’re coming right back.”
Mellie hung up on her sister for the second time that day and pocketed her phone as she turned back toward the direction of the bookstore. She glanced up at Peter to fill him in, but he was smiling.
“I heard,” he told her as they took off at a much brisker pace than that which they’d set out with on the way to this spot. They were about halfway around the cove, but Mellie was confident John would stay put at the store until they got there.
John was understanding and even encouraging when he heard what Peter and Mellie had been up to. Urse gave Mellie a knowing look but didn’t tease her as badly as Mellie had feared, even after Peter and John left. Peter had to see to his grandmother before opening his store, and John always had mayor stuff to do.
The bookshop was busier than usual, with a shipment having been delivered two days ago. Everyone in town knew when the deliveries were made, since the truck came through only rarely. They were polite enough to give the sisters time to sort everything out, but then, those who had special ordered particular volumes would show up, looking for their books.
Urse stayed for most of the afternoon, the sisters sharing a quick lunch Urse picked up at the bakery down the street, while they continued to sort through the big boxes of stock that had been delivered for the store. Thankfully, Urse laid off the teasing, and Mellie was able to keep her delicious memories of the night before to herself for a while. She didn’t exactly daydream, but Urse caught her staring into space at least once, though she didn’t make a big fuss over it, for which Mellie was grateful.
Peter called after Urse left for the night to say he would try to stop by during his patrol, but he was working the night shift on his part-time gig as a deputy sheriff. She knew he wouldn’t be able to stay long. The duty of protecting the cove and its residents was something he took very seriously, but it would be good to at least say hello and maybe share a cup of coffee on his break. Mellie told him she’d be waiting.
CHAPTER NINE
The dragon winged in under cover of darkness. Peter felt the weight of the dragon’s presence in the sky above, though he’d never felt such a thing before and couldn’t see anything in the pitch-black night. He just knew.
He’d left Mellie hours before, sorry he couldn’t spend time with her tonight, but perhaps it had worked out for the best. Being on patrol—awake in the wee hours of the night when everyone else in town was either going about their business or fast asleep—meant that Peter was hyper-aware of any threats that might come in the night. He wasn’t sure if the dragon was a threat, exactly, or not, but it was definitely something dangerous and an unknown quantity.
So far, the energy felt more curious than damning. The dragon seemed to be flying around, pausing here or there. If anything, Peter would surmise that the shifter was checking out the town before he made contact.
One point in the man’s favor—the ward around the town had let him past without raising any alarms. From what Peter had heard, evil would never be able to pass Urse’s wards without a major production. If Peter hadn’t been watching so carefully, he doubted he would even have noticed the dragon’s entrance. Which meant he wasn’t evil. A good thing.
Whether or not he would help them remained to be seen.
*
The dragon sensed great magic at work in the tiny town below. Evidence of building projects was easily seen, as were the signs of habitation. From above, he also sensed magic in the waters of the cove. Interesting.
Paul was familiar with bears and the intense flavor of their magic, but the sea creatures in the cove were elusive. Not so the evil pulsating from just off shore. So. They weren’t kidding when they said they had a sea monster problem.
Paul winged over the potent magical barrier that blocked the cove from the rest of the ocean, noting the interest of the tentacled beasts beyond. They sensed him. Not good.
He made for a likely tree that would support his weight. A giant sequoia, if he wasn’t mistaken. Now, this was a tree. He liked the Pacific Northwest already, though he’d never been here before. They had trees that could truly hold a dragon and even hide him from below. Nice.
From his perch high atop the massive tree, Paul took note of the town again. He saw the heat signatures of beings in slumber, and a few on the prowl. One was watching the skies, and if his eyesight wasn’t failing him, that one wore a uniform with a shiny bright star on his chest. A policeman of some kind. And he seemed aware of something amiss. Good instincts.
Paul didn’t know what to make of a town that concentrated so many bear shifters in one place. Even more confusing was that they seemed to be in league with powerful strega. It was somewhat unprecedented, though in ancient times, he’d read that shifters often coexisted alongside mages and other magical folk, banding together to fight evil.
Rumors abounded about the return of Elspeth, the so-called Destroyer. Paul was young. He hadn’t been around the last time Light had fought Dark and succeeded. Frankly, he didn’t know what to make of the strange happenings in recent years, only that something was happening. Something not good.
Paul had thought long and hard about which side he would take if the battle came to a head in his lifetime. He hadn’t completely decided one way or the other until very recently.
His life hadn’t been easy to this point, and he’d never really benefitted from being good. He hadn’t really tried being completely bad either. He honestly wasn’t sure he had it in him. There was still a fragile human heart inside his dangerous beast body. That heart had been battered and bloodied, but it still beat with compassion for the underdog and yearned to protect those weaker than himself.
Which was basically everybody. Though, they didn’t know it. Paul flew under the radar as much as possible and spent most of his time now traveling the world, chasing rumors of other dragons. More than anything, he wanted to find others of his kind. There had to be more dragons. Somewhere.
He just hadn’t found any yet. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep trying. He had to have come from somewhere. Finding out what had happened to his family was important to him, but even just finding another dragon somewhere on Earth would be a big deal to a man who had grown up an orphan.
Luckily, his dragon form had come to him in adulthood. He’d already been living on his own, far out of town when his first change had come upon him. He hated to think what could have happened to him otherwise. Living all his childhood in one of those notorious Romanian orphanages where the babies were never held had left him scarred…but not broken.
He’d fought for every step he’d taken on the path to a normal life until he was eighteen and living on the side of a mountain. Then, the dragon had come to him, and everything had changed. Suddenly, he had way more questions about his origins than he’d had before and another line of inquiry, though finding out about secretive shifters wasn’t an easy thing. Especially when other shifters recognized him as one of their kind but couldn’t place his animal.
He often got by claiming he was some sort of bear, but that wouldn’t work here in Grizzly Cove. Besides, they already knew about him. In this place, he would wear his own skin and his true identity. It was a novel concept.
Settling in the massive tree to wait for dawn, Paul decided he’d meet the strega and her bear friend then decide what to do from there. He could always fly away. Even a Clan of bears would be no match for his dragon. Though that thing in the water…
Paul looked out over the ocean and saw what looked like massive tentacles sticking up out of the water against the dark horizon. That thing was a beast. He wondered, if his dragon took on the leviathan, which one would come out the victor.
*
Mellie yawned as she turned the sign on the bookshop’s door from CLOSED to OPEN. She hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night. Currents of magic had swirled around her, making her restless all night long. She thought maybe it had been her imagination, but there was something different about the energy of the town today. Something…not quite normal.
Not that Grizzly Cove had ever been normal, per se. She smiled to herself at the thought. Get a town full of highly magical shifters, and things were bound to be a little different.
She went back to the desk and sat down, just enjoying the morning for a moment before she started in on the work that was waiting for her. Peter had worked the night shift, so she wasn’t sure when she’d be seeing him, though there was a good chance he’d stop in before he went off shift this morning. She knew that the night shift guy usually stuck around for a debrief before the day shift guy clocked on, so they should be doing that right around now.
She sipped her coffee and looked through the open doorway to the backroom. There were still a couple of boxes that needed unpacking, and then, she could work on the front window display.
The bell rang above the door, and she turned, expecting to see Peter, but the smile froze on her lips as her gaze met that of a total stranger. A very big, very scary, total stranger.
In a town full of big, scary men, this guy was in a class all by himself. Mellie swallowed her fear and thought about her options should this guy become violent. She was a strega. A powerful hereditary witch. There had to be something she could do if the worst should happen, right?
If she had the right potion, she could turn the guy into a frog, but all her good brews were upstairs. Not that she had ever brewed up anything that would turn anybody into anything even remotely resembling a frog…
She was babbling, even in her own mind. Get a grip, Mel!
“Be at ease, little one. I have come, as requested, to listen to your plea.”
His voice was like waves rippling on lava. Fire and brimstone and the rumbles of the earth. For a moment, she was mesmerized by the sheer power of his voice.
“What?” Mellie blinked, breaking the spell and retreated behind the counter, putting some space between herself and this beguiling man. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“It is more a question of what you want from me. To answer your first question, I am the dragon.”
“Holy shit.” The profanity left her mouth in a stunned whisper, and thankfully, the dragon-man thought it was funny. He laughed while she tried to regain her wits. “I— I’m sorry. I’m Mellie Ricoletti. Thank you for coming. To be honest, I was only expecting a phone call where I could plead for your help.”
The suave dragon shifter gestured toward himself smoothly. “And yet, here I am. You can make your plea in person. I have already seen what you are up against in the ocean.” For the first time, he seemed unsure, and Mellie was glad. That little bit of uncertainty made him seem more human.
“The leviathan,” Mellie confirmed. “And a few hundred of its minions. Or maybe a few thousand. There’s no way to be really sure.”
“Why has it come here? Do you have any theories?” The dragon shifter moved closer, but the sturdy counter was still between them, and for now, Mellie wasn’t any more afraid of the guy than she had been a moment ago, so she was holding her own.
“The concentration of magical energy is what my nonna and her friends believe brought it here. There were rumors of it off the coast of Italy and in other parts of the world earlier, then one day, it showed up here. It tried to eat the Master Vampire of Seattle. It crunched on his yacht when he was doing reconnaissance on the town and ate his crew. He made it ashore but was badly damaged. He has since formed a strategic alliance with the bears here.”
“You don’t say? That is an odd occurrence, indeed.” The dragon released her from his gaze as he looked out the window toward the water across the street. “And what of the creatures in the cove itself? What are they?”
He would find out sooner or later, and he already knew something was there in the water, so Mellie figured it couldn’t hurt anything to enlighten him. Lying to this man wasn’t likely to earn his trust or help with her potion.
“A pod of mer were attacked by the leviathan and its minions. The Alpha bear offered them sanctuary, and my sister cast permanent wards to safeguard the waters of the cove.”
“Your sister?” the dragon looked back at her, capturing her gaze once more. “Blood kin or merely another strega?” he asked.
“There’s nothing mere about being strega,” she replied a bit haughtily. Who did this guy think he was to talk down to her?
He blinked in a way that wasn’t quite human. It was like he had two eyelids or something. Like a lizard.
Oh, yeah. He was a dragon. Shit.
“To answer your question, Urse is my older sister. Blood kin, as you call it. And she’s now mated to the Alpha bear.” Mellie added that to quell the interest she thought she saw in the dragon shifter’s eyes.
“I have seen her ward. It seems your sister is truly a power. I wonder if you are the same?” He advanced another step, but Mellie held firm.
“We have different gifts.” She could at least say that without giving too much away. “Urse does spells. I do potions.”
“And it is for a potion that you seek a dragon?” he asked, one eyebrow rising in question.
“Yes. I’ve been given the task of creating a potion that will push the leviathan and its minions even farther out to sea. As my sister protected the cove, I aim to protect the coast.” She’d never come out and stated her goal to anyone—not even Urse—but Mellie knew that, if she could just come up with the right potion, she could protect most of the Pacific coast of North America…given enough time for the potion to disperse.
“Ambitious,” the dragon shifter commented. “But can you really do it?”
“My sister casts permanent wards. My grandmother sees the future. It was Nonna who set us on these tasks. So far, we’re doing pretty well. Urse batted hers out of the ballpark. Now, it’s my turn.” Mellie might have put a bit too much bravado into her words, but she was on shaky footing with this oppressively dominant male.
“And you need my help to complete your task,” the dragon shifter stated. “Tell me, what brought you to this conclusion? You have a lot of powerful beings here. Surely, one of them could help you instead.”
“I’ve tried just about everything I could think of,” Mellie admitted. “The potion recipe I’m following comes from an ancient grimoire.”
“You didn’t dream up the recipe yourself?” The dragon shifter seemed surprised…and impressed?
“Not for something this important. Not yet. I’m a good potion witch, but it’ll take a lifetime to get to the point where I can craft a potion of this magnitude from scratch. If I get to that point, I will add to the Ricoletti grimoire, but only after a lifetime’s study and practice. I’m only in my twenties. Give a girl a break.” She smiled slightly to soften her words, and the man seemed to respond to her friendliness. He shrugged.
“I’m young for a dragon, too. There are many lessons still to learn, I suppose. I hadn’t thought about how it must work for a mage.” He refocused his attention on her. “So, you’ve been given access to an ancient book of spells, and you picked one that called for a dragon?”
“Something like that. Actually, the way the book works, it will only show me the page I need. I can’t open it to any other page. It reveals its knowledge only
when truly necessary, so the fact that it showed me exactly one, and only one, recipe means that’s the only shot I’ve got at getting this right.” Mellie warmed to her subject. “I tried other magical and mundane creatures to substitute for the dragon ingredient, but nothing worked on the scale we all need this to work. Frankly, I didn’t believe dragons existed, and I figured the word had been used as a euphemism until I spoke to Peter and his grandmother.”
“Peter. This is your bear friend?” the man asked.
“Peter is…everything,” she admitted, knowing she had to be totally honest. She saw the glimmer of interest in those alien-lizard eyes, and she didn’t want him getting any ideas. She noted his comprehension and a fleeting look of disappointment as he nodded. “Peter’s grandmother is visiting from Russia. They are Kamchatka bears, but I recently learned they had a dragon ancestor. Until I found that out, I thought dragons were either a fairytale or they’d died out long ago.”
The dragon shifter’s gaze grew intense. “They have dragon blood?” he asked, his tone holding deep interest. “Are you sure?”
“I tried the spell with Peter’s help, and we actually got a good result that time. It wasn’t as potent as it needs to be, but the potion did drive some of the smaller creatures away from the shore up by the stone circle.”
“I saw the circle from the air. A new formation,” the dragon observed almost absently. “Great magic is at work here. I’m not certain I should add mine to it, but I would like to talk to both your Peter and his grandmother, if you can arrange it.”
Mellie caught sight of something through the glass door of the shop, and she smiled. “That won’t be too hard to arrange. Peter’s here.”
Peter didn’t like the way the stranger was looming over Mellie. He entered the store and was immediately hit by a wave of the other shifter’s dominance. He was a scary mofo, as the Americans would say, but Peter was Kamchatka. There was little in the world that he could not handle.