Naked Dragon

by Annette Blair

  “What’s that?” McKenna asked, pointing.

  “That is a tigeroon, and there, a porcupig, and in the air, a bustard. All quite prized on the island.”

  Vivica glanced at him and away as fast. “McKenna, when was the last time you saw three moons in a pink sky, one scarlet, one raspberry, and one paprika? How gorgeous is that?”

  “The overall effect is beautiful, I admit, but—” McKenna did not look quite convinced.

  Vivica put an arm around McKenna’s shoulder, and Bastian wondered how his employer would react if he tried to embrace her.

  “Leave it the way it is,” Vivica said, “and furnish it right away. Furnish it with plain pieces but not too many. Try a bed with no headboard, so as not to spoil the view. Then before you do another thing, take a picture of it, slap it on a brochure, put it on your website, on the Salem websites, anywhere on the ’Net where tourists would look. Don’t forget to use ‘magick’ and ‘enchanting’ in your advertising, and mention Ciarra hiding in the caves, historic, hallowed ground, yada yada. And throw in a picture of that giant old tree shaped like a dragon.”

  “I like that tree,” Bastian said. “I noticed it when I rode Toffee.”

  “Vivica, you really think this is a good idea, don’t you? Because you’re starting to convince me to book a room here.” McKenna pulled a notebook and pencil from her pocket. “I haven’t even named the B and B yet.”

  “No time like the present,” Vivica said. “You need paying guests yesterday.”

  McKenna paled. “I have sixty-nine days left to get ready for them. You’re scaring me.”

  “I don’t mean to, sweetie. You were blindsided by your mother’s death, but you had this mess to clean up. I’m not pushing; I’m encouraging. Bastian, can you paint more scenes like this, with other wild colors and more proud, beautiful dragons?”

  “I have an endless supply in my head.”

  “McKenna, name your B and B.” Vivica indicated the room. “Behold the place where dragons live. Picture this room as you name it.”

  McKenna looked around. “The Dragon’s Inn? No, too ordinary. How about the Dragon’s Lair?”

  “I like it,” Bastian said.

  McKenna hid her pride, but her eyes smiled.

  “Magickal,” Vivica said, “and perfect, given the family’s ancient dragon collection.”

  “And the back parlor mantel,” Bastian added.

  “And don’t forget the dragon tree,” Vivica added.

  McKenna looked from one of them to the other. “I used to call it the dragon tree when I wanted my dad to build a tree house in it. The Dragon’s Lair. It works better than I expected. We could keep dragon kites in the closet. Families could fly them in the valley. We get a nice breeze there off the old harbor.”

  “Good,” Vivica said. “I know magick when I see it, and when Bastian’s finished painting these rooms, your guests will see magick, too.”

  Bastian’s heart about jumped from his chest when McKenna flashed her first true smile. “The Dragon’s Lair. That’s what it’s meant to be called. I’ll work on the brochure tonight. When you’re finished painting, Bastian, and the walls are dry, you can help me move furniture in, so I can take a digital picture. Cedrig and Jaydun, hey? Do all your dragons have names?”

  “Of course.”

  McKenna raised her arms and let them fall to her sides as she left the room.

  “Nice likeness of a faery,” Vivica whispered.

  Bastian washed paprika paint off a brush. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Vivica winked. “I think you’re saving McKenna—well, her family legacy, at least.” She slipped him a box of DVDs. “Do these lessons and fast. Getting these to you is why I planned to come out here today. Then I met McKenna and she confirmed my concern.”

  “I’m glad you came, or she would not have liked my work.”

  “Fate works its own magick. Your employer needs to make a mortgage payment in time to beat a greedy developer at his own game, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “What is a developer?”

  “The guy’s a builder trying to steal McKenna’s land so he can fill it with condos and make a lot of money. You’ll meet him soon enough. Judge for yourself.”

  “Condos are bad?”

  “No. In the right place, they’re great. On a historic site, on hallowed ground that still belongs to the family that’s owned it for centuries, not so much.”

  “I will protect McKenna from the developer, but tell me what you think of him.”

  “He’s a bit like Killian, but human, unfortunately for the race. When you come face-to-face with him for the first time, don’t show your claws, and I mean that literally.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Bastian woke as all dragons must, ready to do battle.

  His attackers screamed.

  He roared and smoked up the room, until he realized where he was.

  The last time he had an eyelid pried open, he’d nearly lost the eye. His attacker had not been so lucky.

  Jock did a quick smoke test on his bite-sized assailants. They passed.

  As he expected, the sound of his auto-roar brought McKenna and a woman he did not know into the room, followed by a man in a chair on wheels. “Wyatt! Whitney!” the man snapped, obviously familiar with the dawn invaders.

  The tiny hands that pried his eyelids open belonged to two kidlets who had invaded his bed. The bouncing creatures on either side of him were not the least afraid of his roar or his smoke. The girl, with big blue eyes and long, curly blond hair, had a vivid expression that spoke volumes. The other, a boy, had wide, curious brown eyes that spoke of an eagerness to learn the world’s secrets.

  Bastian sat up in the bed, keeping his blankets to his waist. He had, unfortunately, not awakened in McKenna’s bed again during the week and a half he’d spent painting bedrooms. Her very romantic words to him at bedtime last night, as she looked out at the rain, had been, “Only fifty-nine freaking days left!”

  The woman he did not know reached over him and snatched her kidlets away as if he might eat them. At one time, he might not have known better, but he now understood the humanness of humanity. Even the humanness of cats. Sad to admit, but creature snacks were losing their appeal.

  “Lizzie,” McKenna said, “this is Bastian, my handyman.”

  “Yep,” Lizzie said. “He sure looks handy to me. Hello,” she said. “These marauders belong to us. This is my husband, Steve.”

  “Hello,” Steve said from his chair.

  “I apologize for the shout,” Bastian said. “I was in the army. I saw the kind of battle where you stay alive by waking up ready to fight.”

  “No, we apologize,” the husband said. “They move fast and they’re comfortable here at McKenna’s, which isn’t always a good thing.”

  Lizzie put the children on their father’s lap, and McKenna pulled the man’s chair from the room. His wife remained like a statue, staring at him in his bed.

  Bastian wondered if she could see his claws, wings, or tail.

  McKenna came back in a huff and dragged her friend from the room.

  It was the first time Bastian had enjoyed his heightened senses, because he could hear the two women talking all the way up the hall.

  “I can’t believe I had to pry you out of there.”

  “McKenna, he’s gorgeous, a hunk and a half, but taller, broader, and more handsome than any man between here and Hollywood. He’s like the best of every hunk in L.A.”

  “Personally,” McKenna said, “I’m thinking he’s like a cross between Hugh Jackman and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.”

  “Yes! Except that he’s bigger with wider shoulders, and he puts out an aura of charisma, times, like, thirteen,” Lizzie said.

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Oh, girl, get a grip, and I’m not only talking to myself here. I’m crazy in love with Steve and I’m attracted to your handy hunk. Have you seen him naked yet?”

  Silence, Bastian heard.r />
  “McKenna?” her friend said. “You’re not answering me. I repeat. Have you seen him naked?”

  “Little bit.”

  “Yes!” Lizzie screamed. “I’ll bet he’s hung.”

  “LizBeth!”

  “Well, he wasn’t hiding a cocktail frank under that blanket.”

  “I don’t know if he’s hung, okay? We had wine. I fell asleep, and he got so bored, he did, too. Close call. Survived. Never gonna happen again.”

  “Liar.”

  “You think I don’t know how yum cakes he is? I wish he was as ugly as the swine he tried to protect me from. He should only protect me from himself.”

  “What are you talking about? Or maybe I should ask what you’re scared of.”

  “He’s too damned perfect. I’m staying the hell away from him. Remind me I said that, will you?”

  “He’s not perfect; he’s scarred. Scary scarred. Did you see the trails of, I don’t know, claw marks, maybe, on his neck and workout abs?”

  Abs? Bastian wondered, touching the scars from Cedrig’s claws and Devane’s dratted teeth marks.

  “Are those teeth marks in his side?” Lizzie asked. “How do they feel to the touch?”

  “How the hell should I know how they feel or how they got there?”

  “I’d sure like to know,” Lizzie said.

  “You heard him,” McKenna said. “He’s been in the army.”

  Lizzie laughed. “Where he fought a T. rex?”

  “I think the scars make him look like a beast,” McKenna said. “A ‘come and eat me’ beast, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting him near me.”

  “McKenna Greylock, you’re half in lust already. Admit it.”

  “No way.”

  Bastian folded his arms behind his head and smiled. McKenna’s interest boded well for the possibility of him getting to use his man lance someday soon. If only he could get her to drink wine again.

  “Personally,” Lizzie said, “I think he’s got the hots for you.”

  “He does not. Why do you think so?”

  “The way he keeps track of you with his eyes.”

  Bastian sat straighter in the bed. He did not, did he?

  “You have an imagination and a half, Framingham!”

  The women’s voices faded at the familiar sound of the porch door bouncing closed. Disappointed that he could no longer hear them, Bastian rose, pleased by Lizzie’s view of McKenna’s interest in him.

  Since everyone else had eaten, he made himself a steak for breakfast, minus the side of yellow eyes, ate it dragon fast, then joined McKenna and her friends outside. “What is my job today, Boss?”

  “Steve is your boss today,” McKenna said. “You do what he tells you.”

  “You’re roofing today, buddy,” Steve said. “First thing you do is get the supplies from the shed.”

  “My name is Bastian.”

  “Can I go with him, Dad?” the boy asked.

  “I don’t know, Wyatt.” Steve scratched his ear and looked up. “Do you mind, Bastian?”

  Bastian ruffled the boy’s hair. “I think I can handle him.”

  “Wyatt,” Steve said with a warning finger, “you wait outside the shed when you get there. Just keep Mr. Dragonelli company on the way to and from, okay?”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Bastian had no idea how to talk to children. He was trying to think of something to say when the boy looked up. “Wanna know a secret?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Okay,” Bastiansaid, with no idea whathe was agreeing to. “I want to know a secret.”

  “My dad hurts a lot,” Wyatt said, “but he doesn’t want Mom to know.”

  Bastian regarded the boy. “Did your dad tell you that?” “No, but I can see his face when Mom’s not looking, and I heard him say he was sick of that chair.”

  “I guess I can’t blame him. I bet you help him every chance you get.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m not playing with Whitney in the house, in case Dad needs anything.”

  “Good for you. Did your dad tell you what hurts most?”

  “His knees. He rubs them all the time. And he holds his head, too, sometimes.”

  “I see. Okay, kidlet, I’m going in the shed but I’ll be right out. Don’t move.”

  Wyatt sat on a stump and waited. Bastian handed him a box of roofing nails to carry on the way back.

  Steve watched them as they returned. “You’re a strong one, Bastian, carrying all those shingles at once.”

  “I’ve always been strong. Would you be more comfortable in a different chair?”

  “Yes, but I’m stuck in this one.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Bastian brought out the recliner from the library and set it beneath a tree not far from the house.

  Steve shook his head. “You’re an optimistic man, but—”

  Bastian lifted him in his arms and sat him in the recliner. “From here you can supervise this unhandy handyman and rest, too.”

  Steve’s sigh of relief proved little Wyatt’s concern right. Bastian pushed the handle back so the chair raised Steve’s useless legs.

  “Man, I could get used to this,” Steve said.

  Bastian leaned down and put a hand on each of Steve’s knees. “Your son told me you were uncomfortable. He’s worried about you. You should know what a great kid you have. Don’t let on that I told you, or how worried he is, though you might give him hope once in a while, tell him you’re feeling better, having a good day, stuff like that.”

  Steve looked at Bastian’s hands on his knees, then up at him. “I appreciate your concern. Can you move the chair’s lever forward a bit more?”

  Bastian hated to remove his healing hands so soon. The tingling in his palms indicated a lot of damage in Steve’s knees. A lingering touch would work better, but this was the best he could manage while hiding his gift of healing. He went back to getting the shingles for the roof.

  Whitney came running from the house and down the porch steps, her hands on her head. “Barbie’s got me! She’s got me!”

  Bastian looked up from breaking the binding around a pack of shingles. Could the little one see Dewcup? He caught the little girl and set her in Steve’s lap.

  Steve chuckled. “How can Barbie be chasing you?”

  “She’s alive, I tell you. I can prove it. She has wings, an orange flower skirt, and a buttercup hat. She said my hair was like spun silk and could she take a nap in it?”

  “Did you say yes?” Steve asked.

  “No. I said no. But she’s there, anyway.”

  Bastian checked her hair, and sure enough . . . He raised a brow at Dewcup.

  The faery pest raised her chin and turned on her side in the child’s soft hair to face away from him.

  “What an imagination you have, Whitney,” her father said.

  “Imagination?” Bastian asked.

  “Invisible friends, that kind of thing. It’s always something with this one.”

  What a relief. “Well, Whitney, may I help get her out of your hair?”

  “Yes, please, Mr. Bastian, sir.”

  Something tickled Bastian about her response as he worked to extract the stubborn, clinging faery from Whitney’s beautiful curls.

  “Ouch!” Whitney yelled. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!”

  “My pardon,” Bastian said, denying his need to shout as Dewcup wound her arms and legs around a mass of blond curls.

  “May you grow limp in your man parts,” the faery cursed, “before you get to use them.”

  Bastian rolled his eyes and tried slipping Dewcup down and off the golden strands.

  “Boils on your backside. Fur on your tongue!”

  “Dewcup, you have no manners,” Bastian said . . . out loud, unfortunately.

  Steve furrowed his brows. “When you play, you really play.”

  Whitney’s eyes widened. “Is Dewcup her real name?”

  “Why, yes, it is.” Though since his arrival and the faery’s pesky presence, he h
ad wanted to call her the kind of names a little girl should not know.

  “I want to be friends with Dewcup,” Whitney said. “She can ride my shoulder, or sit in my pocket, but I don’t like her in my hair. It hurts, and I can’t see her up there.”

  “Dewcup, do you find that a reasonable request?”

  “Eat slug slime,” Dewcup said, arms crossed.

  He finally got the faery free and deposited the pesky thing into the little girl’s pocket. “Feed her honey clover petals and she’ll be your friend forever. There’s a patch of clover right there beside your father’s chair.”

  Whitney grinned. “Do you want some clover petals, Dewcup?”

  Arms crossed, disposition sour, the faery gave him a dirty look, but she relented and gave Whitney a nod.

  The little girl slid off her father’s lap, and began a conversation with the annoying flutterbrat about dolls and tea parties, and Dewcup’s interest sweetened with each tiny petal she devoured.

  “Do you have kids?” Steve asked.

  Bastian shook his head. “No, but I have a faery I would sell cheap.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  From the porch, McKenna and Lizzie watched Bastian interact with Wyatt and Whitney.

  Lizzie sat on the top step. “I can’t get over the way that brute of a man managed to win over my two skeptics. They’re hard sells.”

  “I know. I would have expected him to throw them out of his room this morning when they tried to pry his eyelids open.”

  Lizzie groaned. “I about had a heart attack when Wyatt admitted that’s what he and Whitney were doing.”

  “Bastian’s an enigma,” McKenna said. “Big, strong, and fearsome, yes, but he did something about Steve’s discomfort that we never thought to do. Okay, he’s stronger than we are, but you and I might have managed, if we worked together.”

  “I’ve watched my husband wincing and changing positions, but I didn’t think to try and get him into something other than his bed or that chair once in a while, I’m ashamed to admit.”