by Dena Christy
He turned and walked toward the building before she could say anything. She picked up the wrapped package and had a feeling she knew what was inside. Lunch was one thing, but she could not accept a gift from a stranger. Curiosity got the better of her and she pulled off the paper. As she thought, nestled inside the package was the red dragon.
4
A closed look descended upon Andor’s face and it was what Lyssa suspected she’d see after telling him about her current situation. She should have known better than to reveal to him the depth of Kevin’s craziness. Instead of being an attractive woman worth getting to know better, she was the lady with the psycho ex boyfriend who was a self-proclaimed dragon hunter. She should have kept her mouth shut, at least for a little longer. She knew this chance encounter couldn’t go anywhere, but it had been nice to enjoy the illusion that there was something more to it than a brief meeting.
She searched for something to say to pierce the awkward silence that had sprung up between them, but what could she say? Ignore that my ex is deranged and consider going out with me? Desperation on top of everything else would not win him over.
“There you are.”
Two voices spoke at the same time, and Lyssa jumped. Portia came over to stand by her side, and she was relieved to see that her friend was fine. A young man with spiky blue hair and multiple piercings stood beside Andor, and it was his voice that had joined Portia’s in exclaiming their relief.
Lyssa stood, and Andor followed suit. This was her cue to leave. There was no reason to linger with him. He had stood so fast she was sure he was eager to get away from her.
“It was nice to meet you, Andor.” She stuck out her hand, and instead of kissing it like he had when she offered it before, he gave it a brief shake.
“Yes, it was lovely to meet you as well, Lyssa. I’ll leave you in your friend’s care.” He nodded to Portia, picked up the bag with the glass dragon inside and handed it to the blue haired young man standing beside him. “Come along, Rickman.”
Rickman smiled at both of them, and turned on his heel to follow Andor, whose long-legged strides took him away from her with a swiftness that would have been disheartening if she hadn’t expected it.
“Who was that?” Portia’s tone was one of curiosity and feminine appreciation. “He’s hot, and with those clothes, he must be rich.”
“How can you know how much money he has based on his costume? He’s dressed like a peasant.”
“If I’m not mistaken those clothes are authentic, and trust me, an authentic peasant costume costs a lot of money. So who is he and how did you hook up with him?”
“It doesn’t matter who he is. I won’t be seeing him again.” A stab of regret went through her, and she knew it was foolish to feel that way. She’d only just met him and didn’t know him at all. She couldn’t seem to disentangle herself from Kevin, and it wasn’t like she was in the market for another relationship. “Can we leave? I want to go home.”
“That’s all you’re going to say? There has to be more to the story than that.”
Lyssa sighed. Portia would need more information than what she wanted to tell her. She decided to give her friend the abridge version so they could hasten their departure.
“I met a very nice man who tried to give me a gift and bought me lunch. I refused the gift and ate the lunch. You came, he left and I would like to leave now.” There had been no sign of Kevin, and Lyssa was now convinced she had imagined him being near the fortune teller’s caravan. That knowledge was bittersweet because without conjuring the specter of Kevin she would never have approached Andor. And she would not have felt, for a brief moment at least, like a normal woman.
“He bought you a gift? I understand why you refused it but you don’t want to see him again? Are you crazy? A gorgeous man buys you a gift and takes you to lunch and that’s the end of it? Are you feeling okay?” Portia reached out and playfully put her hand on her forehead. Lyssa shook her hand off.
“He did all that before I told him about Kevin.” Why had she been so honest with him? She should have refused to speak about Kevin, but he’d seemed so sincere when he said he wouldn’t judge her. She was sure he’d meant it, and perhaps he had until he knew the extent of the craziness in her life. She didn’t blame him for wanting to get away from her. Sometimes she wanted to get away from the mess her life had become too.
“Why would you tell him about Kevin? No man wants to hear about a woman’s crazy ex boyfriend, especially not when they first meet them.”
She would have to tell Portia everything, otherwise she would never let this go.
“I know, but I didn’t have a choice. I thought Kevin was here.” Lyssa glanced around, but there was still no sign of him.
“Kevin’s here?” Portia’s face paled, and she looked around. “Where?”
“I thought he was watching me when I left the fortune teller’s caravan. It could be my usual paranoia but I’m sure you can understand why I want to go. Which reminds me, where the hell did you go? I thought you were going to wait for me.” Lyssa tried to keep the accusation out of her voice as she stepped away from the table and went toward the path that would take them out of the fair grounds and to the parking lot.
“I was going to wait for you, but I had to pee. I thought I could be back before you were done, but the line at the bathroom was long, and you were gone by the time I got back.” Portia trotted along beside her as they made their way through the crowd. “What did the fortune teller say? Did she give you a prediction for your future?”
Lyssa remembered what the woman had said and thought about the glass dragon Andor had tried to give her. “She said there was a dragon in my future. If I’d kept the gift he tried to give me she would have been right.”
“Was that it? Was that all she said?” Portia looked disappointed.
“She also said there was a shadowy figure from my past that was clouding my future. Apparently he is going to cause trouble for me.”
“So she knew about Kevin?” Portia’s eyes went round. Her friend had always been willing to believe in things that couldn’t be explained. In that she and Lyssa were very different. Lyssa only believed in things that she could see and feel.
“She didn’t know about Kevin.” Lyssa rolled her eyes. She loved Portia, but she was naive. “She put things in such a way that they could be open to interpretation.”
“She was right about the dragon, at least in that it was in your future for a brief moment. How do you explain that?” They came to the edge of the parking lot and Portia turned toward her with a stubborn look on her face. Her friend was determined to believe in the fortune teller.
“She probably saw this.” Lyssa pulled on the fragile silver chain around her neck. A dragon pendant, which had been hidden from view under her blouse, glinted in the sunlight. “It wouldn’t take much for her to figure out that I like dragons. And considering that we are at a fair that sells dragon related items it wouldn’t be a stretch for her to guess that I might get something dragon related.”
Portia pouted for a moment and then her face cleared and a smile stretched across her face. “You can be as skeptical as you want, but I think there was more to it than that. I think she was talking about Kevin.”
“Are you trying to scare me?” She was already scared enough, she didn’t need Portia to add to it.
“No, but I would like you to open yourself up to the possibilities that there is more to life than what you can see and touch.”
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m tired and I have things I need to do at home.” It was a depressing notion that all she had going on at home was several loads of laundry. She needed to get a life, Portia had been right about that. She’d let Kevin have too much power over her, and by staying in her home without interacting with the outside world, she was only hurting herself. The only way he would move on would be if she showed him that she was getting on with her life. “I had a good time today. It’s too bad that we didn’t g
et to spend more of the day together.”
“Don’t worry about it. I wanted you to get out of the house, and it wasn’t a total loss. You got to spend time with a gorgeous man.”
That was a good way to put it, and she was going to look at it like that. She got to meet an attractive man and spend time with him. He’d made her forget her troubles, at least for a little while, and although she wouldn’t see him again, she could be grateful for the distraction.
She and Portia walked into the parking lot, and Lyssa wished for a second that she had taken the dragon he had offered her. She could have used it as a reminder of a pleasant afternoon spent with a gorgeous man.
Portia gasped beside her and drew her to a halt. Lyssa looked up and her stomach dropped to her toes as her body went cold all over.
“Lyssa, we need to talk.” Kevin stood next to the car, only a few feet from her and there was a feverish intensity in his eyes. Her paranoia had not gotten the better of her. Kevin was here and she had not imagined him in the woods.
Lyssa took a deep breath to calm the pounding of her heart. They were in a public parking lot, and there was nothing he could do to her without drawing an audience.
“If you don’t get out of here, I’m calling the cops.” Portia bristled beside Lyssa, pulled her cell phone out of the drawstring pouched hooked to her belt and held it up for him to see.
“I’m not talking to you, Portia.” Kevin narrowed his eyes at her friend, and Lyssa thought it best to draw his attention away from her.
“You aren’t suppose to come near me Kevin. You were served with a restraining order. Please just leave me alone.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get you back. I don’t know what I did to make you not want me anymore, but if you tell me what it is, I swear I’ll change.” There was a desperation in Kevin’s eyes as he stepped closer to her. Lyssa resisted the urged to take a step back. She couldn’t show him how much he scared her.
“It’s over, Kevin. I don’t want you to change. I’m sorry but we aren’t getting back together.” She tried to keep her voice gentle when she told him there was no hope. She had to be careful that she didn’t incite him to lash out. She could see that Kevin was only holding on to his emotions by a thread. The muscle flexed in his jaw and unfortunately Portia chose that moment to step in front of her.
“Leave her alone. Don’t you get it, she’s done with you.”
Anger suffused Kevin’s face and he grabbed Portia’s cell phone and threw it to the side.
“I told you that I’m not talking to you.”
“Kevin, please just go before you make this any worse.” Lyssa put a gentle hand on Portia’s arm and moved her to her right, out of Kevin’s way. She knew Kevin well enough to know he was holding himself together by the thinest of threads. It wouldn’t take much to make him snap.
“I’m not leaving until you listen to me.” He reached out and took her by the arms. Lyssa could feel his desperation in the painful grip of his vice like hands.
“Let go of her.” Portia’s shout made Lyssa’s ear ring and she lunged at Kevin before Lyssa had a chance to say anything more.
Kevin’s response was easy to foresee. He removed one hand from Lyssa and used it to shove the charging Portia away. Lyssa moved to help Portia as she stumbled back and fell to the ground, but her enraged ex boyfriend held her fast. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“I knew this would be a better place for you to meet women than at the strip club.” Rickman walked beside Andor with a proud grin on his face, as if he was wholly responsible for his meeting Lyssa. Andor rolled his eyes.
“I was the one who suggested that the strippers were not appropriate. If it was up to you, you would still be playing in the Champagne Room.” Not that Lyssa was appropriate now that he knew what manner of trouble she brought with her.
“Well, at least now you’ve met someone, and you can move on to phase two, which is to get her to fall in love with you. You will have two months to do it. Hopefully it will be enough time.”
Andor ignored Rickman as he discreetly looked at every woman that passed by as they walked around the fair grounds. Rickman looked over at him, and must have seen him doing it, because he huffed out an incredulous breath.
“You aren’t still looking, are you? What was wrong with the woman you were talking to? Were you not attracted to her?”
“I am very attracted to her. I am certain that if I spent time with her, I would discover that she is meant for me. Did your foray into reading the archives tell you anything about how to be certain if a woman is a dragon’s mate?” If Lyssa was not fated to be his mate, then he had to keep looking. It was not her fault that she had an ex boyfriend who was a dragon hunter, but she would bring the possibility of exposure to him and his brothers if her former boyfriend became fixated on Andor’s appearance in her life.
“There isn’t a lot of information about that, but the impression I got was that there was one woman who is destined to be with one dragon. If it is because she was born to be the one or because she and her dragon fall in love with each other, I don’t know. You still haven’t told me why she isn’t suitable.”
“She has an ex boyfriend.” Andor was about to explain further when Rickman stopped in the middle of the path and turned and glared at him.
“I told you, you will have to give on finding a virgin. I can’t believe that you would hold a previous relationship against her.” Rickman wasn’t shouting, but he was vehement enough to draw attention to them. Andor pulled him off the path until they were away from the crowd.
“If you would let me finish, she has an ex boyfriend who is a dragon hunter.” Andor kept his voice low since he wanted no one to hear him talking about dragons.
“Why would she volunteer that information? Did you tell her you’re a dragon already?” Rickman’s voice rose in volume, and Andor quickly glanced around to see if anyone was listening. Fortunately the surrounding people appeared to be intent on their own affairs.
“I did not tell her anything about myself, and she volunteered the information about her former boyfriend because he appears to be stalking her. I have no reason to believe that she knows what I am or would believe it if I told her. She thinks the boyfriend is crazy for believing what he believes.” It was difficult to have a conversation without mentioning the word dragon, but Andor was worried that someone would overhear. The worst most people would think was that he was mad, but if there were hunters here, he had to be careful. “We can discuss this in the car where there is little chance we will be overheard.”
Andor got back on the path and strode toward the parking lot with Rickman trotting along beside him. It was just as well that they were leaving. There was little chance he would meet anyone else today, and a part of him did not want to. He wanted to spend more time with Lyssa, but if the man stalking her was a dragon hunter, Andor needed to avoid her. It was not only for his sake, it would be for her safety too. If this man discovered he was a dragon, he could use Lyssa to get to him.
A woman’s sharp cry rang out when they came to the edge of the parking lot. Even after only a short acquaintance, he recognized it as Lyssa's and his head shot up. He took in the scene in a glance as he strode over toward them.
A man had Lyssa in a tight grip and he looked at her with an ugly snarl upon his face. Her friend was sprawled on the ground. He could see the man’s menace, in the way he loomed his hulking body over her. This had to be Kevin, the ex boyfriend, and for all Andor’s thoughts of avoiding Lyssa, he could not leave her at the man’s mercy. He might be big, but Andor was bigger. A surge of protectiveness rose inside him, and he stepped into the man’s eye line.
“Is there a problem?” He made sure his voice was a calm rumble and held himself in check. The urge to rip the man apart was so strong that he had to curl his hands into fists at his side. He could not lose control of himself because he did not want any of them to know his true nature.
“Get lost asshole. This isn’t your
business.” Kevin curled his lip and snarled at him.
“I think it would be best if you let the woman go and move along.” Andor maintained his calm exterior despite seeing the lines of fear etch on Lassa’s face. He wanted to take that fear away and punish the man who put it there, but as long as Kevin gripped Lyssa, he needed to remain calm.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you trying to move in on her. She’s mine, and no one will have her but me.” Kevin’s hand fell away from Lyssa as his attention was diverted from her. Lyssa rushed over to Portia and Andor stepped in Kevin’s way. Kevin would now have to go through him to get to Lyssa and her friend.
“She does not want to see you anymore. Am I correct, Lyssa?” Andor knew the answer to that question, but Kevin needed to hear it again. Perhaps he would finally get the message that she did not want to have anything to do with him anymore.
“That’s right.” Lyssa’s voice sounded a little shaky, and anger surged through Andor. He took a deep breath. He needed to keep calm if he was going to deal with Kevin.
“You heard her. You need to be on your way now.” Andor wished that Kevin would do something stupid. He did not want to commit violence in front of the two ladies, but a part of him needed to drive Kevin into the ground for what he was doing to Lyssa.
Andor got his wish, because as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Kevin took a menacing step toward him. Andor was sure he thought he was intimidating, but he had no sense of what Andor truly was.
“Who will make me? You?”
“If I have to.” Andor didn’t raise his voice, but Kevin’s face paled for a moment as the threat he presented became clear. Andor could see the speculation on Kevin’s face, and he knew the moment that the other man decided to take his chances.
Kevin bunched up his fist and took a swing. Andor dodge the punch easily, and as Kevin followed through, Andor grabbed him by the arm. He used Kevin’s forward momentum against him, pulling his arm until it was behind his back. Kevin struggled, but Andor’s hold was steady and there was no way the other man could break out of it. He shoved Kevin forward until he was up against the car. Andor moved in close so he could speak in Kevin’s ear.