He shook his head and shrugged. “Okay,” he said, “and good luck with that.”
Chapter Ten
Katie
Nindock’s town
Outside Nampa, Idaho, Earth
“THAT WENT WELL,” Jevyn said as we headed away from the saloon. I wasn’t positive if he was being sarcastic or not, but given the circumstances, I was pretty sure he was.
“Look, I’m not a miracle worker, Jevyn. I thought I might have a chance of talking Kam around. He reminded me of Marty when he gets a bit wired when he hasn’t had blood for a while. Marty goes a little crazy, but if I can get hold of him early enough, he can be talked around.” I pointed my thumb back over my shoulder. “That guy is just wacko. Two hours I spent talking to him for nothing.”
“I know. I had to listen to Nindock rambling in my ear for all that time. He’s almost as bad.”
“No,” I said. “No, no, no. Nindock is a model of balance and restraint compared to Kam.”
I shook my head. Kam was all kinds of crazy. How Nindock could have let him in when he first got there, I could understand. But why he let him stay once he found out what he was like, I had no idea, and to be honest, after a couple hours of trying to make him understand, I was glad to be getting away from there.
I didn’t want to be around when they finally untied Kam.
“What are you going to do about the other half of the equation in Dracos?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, is there any way we could find and grab him and bring him back. Force the two halves to bond together again. We might end up with one kinda normal person rather than two maniacs.”
“It’s a thought. But we can’t grab him.”
“Why?” I asked with an annoyed edge I hadn’t intended. “We could go to Dracos and get him back here today.”
“We can’t.” The emphasis on the we told me exactly what he meant.
“Okay, well, you could then.”
Even though I corrected myself, I knew what he was trying to say. He meant I couldn’t go back to Dracos anymore.
If I thought for a minute that Jevyn would stay on Earth, it wouldn’t bother me one little bit. Okay, Earth was messed up at the moment, thanks to the virus and all the crap that went with it, but it was still home.
The prospect of Jevyn being away in Dracos, trying to deal with all the pressures of the situation there, and not coming back often, or not being allowed to come back ever, was one I was having to confront, even though it was the last thing I wanted to happen.
I could understand why. His people. My people. That was settled, but it didn’t mean I had to be happy about it. I could truly say that he was the first man I’d ever had strong feelings for. Feelings that warmed my insides when we touched, that exploded in joy when he was there, and were completely volcanic when we kissed.
It wasn’t like I’d never kissed a guy I’d liked before, but he was different, what he made me feel was different, and apart from the odd slip-up like back at the saloon when he tried to get me to stay where I was—as if—he treated me like an equal. Considering he was a shapeshifting dragon prince from Dracos, and I was a scruffy vamp woman from Earth who nobody had ever heard of, that was actually damn cool of him.
I had never admitted that to anyone, never even myself, but those feelings were becoming something I had to live with permanently. I mean, yeah, there was that moment of lustful thought when you saw a guy’s butt in tight jeans, but this was more than just a moment. This was all the time. When I was with him, it was all I could do to function because I thought about him all the time. When I wasn’t with him? Well, that remained to be seen, and it wasn’t something I was looking forward to one little bit.
“I certainly could do that. But not just yet. Listen, Katie—”
“I’m worried,” I said, butting in before he could start saying something I couldn’t bear to hear.
“What about?”
“Kam.”
“Well, yeah. But what about him?”
I stopped walking. We’d gotten far enough away from the hustle and bustle of the camp for me to be able to talk freely without anyone overhearing.
“When I was talking to him, it occurred to me that someone like him would maybe be of interest to Gregori Industries. You know, an unthinking killing machine. That’s what he could end up being if Nindock doesn’t deal with him.”
I frowned, suddenly remembering something. “Nindock told me something odd had been going on since he got here. Dragons have been disappearing. He said he didn’t think Kam had anything to do with it, but he was concerned that it had only just started to happen.”
“I wonder what that means? Who could be kidnapping dragons from Nindock’s Town?”
“It’s a good question, and I realize now I can’t insist on Nindock completely shutting down operations between Earth and Dracos until we got to the bottom of it.”
As soon as he said that, I was elated. It meant that he would at least be coming back and forth between dimensions for a while longer, so I would still get to see him.
Then a knock of reality sounded inside my head. Would it really make sense to still go on seeing Jevyn, even if only occasionally, allowing my feelings to get deeper and deeper for him? It would be great, but when the time came, as it surely would, when he had to stop coming for good, it would make the pain of separation so much harsher and almost impossible to take.
Surely it would be better to end things quickly with distress and some pain, so it wouldn’t entirely tear me to pieces later.
“What are you thinking?” Jevyn’s words were soft and sweet.
Could I say what I was truly thinking? What would happen? Would he storm off in a temper, and would I never see him again and have to live with the regret of not having a proper goodbye?
“I’m thinking that we’re done here, right?” He nodded. “Then how about instead of going back to the shop and hanging around there for the rest of the day, we go somewhere . . . nice. Somewhere that has good memories for me from the past. I’d like you to see somewhere that means something to me.”
Jevyn didn’t reply at first. He just stared at my eyes as if he were reaching down into my soul and reading all my inner thoughts.
Then he grinned, which threw my insides for a loop again, and said, “That would be nice. How are we going to get there?”
“Well, we could find a car to take, I guess, but it’s a three-hour drive.” I waited a second or two and then continued, trying my best to look like I wasn’t manipulating him in any way. “Although there’s bound to be loads of SCAR patrols we would need to avoid.” I waited again, ready to drive the point home. “And who knows what could happen to us if we got caught?”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I could fly if you want, but it would be safer to open a rift.” The grin was still on his face. He obviously knew when he was being played.
“You’re right.” I started twisting my toe into the dusty ground. “A rift would be safer.”
“But you want to fly again?”
“I do,” I said excitedly. “Please?” I managed a slight amount of pout.
“What’s between us and this magical place you want to go to?”
“Nothing. Ranches and open country almost the whole way.”
He stood, looking at his feet for a few moments, and then lifted his head.
“Just this once.”
I jumped into his arms and planted a huge kiss right on his lips that started to develop and deepen as we stood there until he finally pulled himself away.
“You certainly know how to reward a guy,” he said.
You ain’t seen nothing yet, I thought and then found myself blushing at my very lusty thoughts.
“A reward for a nice gesture and helping me to relive my memories from childhood.” It was just about all I could have said before I passed out from hyperventilating.
“Gratefully received. Okay, turn away.”
I heard the rustle of c
lothes. Then, a few minutes later, I could feel hot breath against my neck.
“I‘m ready.”
I turned back around to see him with his backpack in his mouth.
I held out a hand and took it from him, throwing it on over my shoulder.
He was just as magnificent this time as he had been back in Eastborne, and I really appreciated the fact that he was taking a chance, but even as he flapped his wings to propel us into the air and then turned in a huge bank over the lake next to Nindock’s town, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that this should be the last time.
The experience was bittersweet because of that. The thermals coming up from the hot ground meant he could follow them around in great circling loops without needing to flap his wings and then throw himself off into a breathtaking long glide that shot us forward at an incredible speed. So much so that when he set off, all I could do was hang on as tight as I could even though I knew I couldn’t fall.
By the time we got to where I wanted to show him, I was exhausted and panting from the thrill of the flight. We set down on a patch of land just by the bridge I wanted him to see.
I turned away and handed him his pack, and a couple of minutes later, he announced that he was decent again. I turned around to catch a glimpse of his sculpted abs as he tucked in his shirt, which really did not do anything for my mood but did send delightful shivers down my spine.
“Are you cold?” Jevyn asked, seeing me shiver.
I couldn’t tell him the real reason why I was shivering, so I nodded, and he stepped over and wrapped his jacket around me. I slipped my arms into it, breathing in his comforting scent from the material. I must have looked very odd, walking along in this vast, oversized jacket with one sleeve pushed up so I could hold Jevyn’s hand, but as no one else was likely to be around this far from anywhere, I didn’t really care.
We scrambled up a bank and onto the bed of an old, unused railway line. Jevyn looked unsure for a moment, but I assured him there hadn’t been a train rolling along the line for decades. The rusty rails—broken in places from the effects of wind, rain, snow, and ice over the last fifty years—seemed to mollify his concerns, and before long, we had reached my target.
The girders of the short bridge were spotted with rust too, but they were too thick to have been eaten through already. Although it wasn’t a particularly attractive structure, it seemed to just fit, as though it had always been there, part of the landscape, which I suppose it had been as far as my lifetime was concerned.
I headed over to the bank and picked up some fallen branches and twigs from the trees that ran alongside.
“You’ll need some of these,” I said to Jevyn, prompting him to come over and pick some up too. Then he stood up with a puzzled look on his face. “You’ll see what they’re for when we get on the bridge. Last one there’s a . . .” I couldn’t think of anything to call each other that didn’t sound childish, but being there made me feel like a child again.
“I’ll race you,” I said instead and set off at a sprint before Jevyn had a chance to turn around, but I could hear his footsteps pounding behind me as we ran onto the bridge. The farther on we got, the more the bridge bounced under our feet. I hadn’t remembered it doing that before, but then again, the last time I’d been here, I’d been half the size I was then.
When we got to the middle, I stopped, panting for breath again and turning to see where Jevyn was. I jumped when I found him right behind me. He was juggling pieces of a branch in his arms that had come loose as he ran. Then, he fumbled them once too often, and they fell onto the bed of the bridge in an untidy pile.
I was going to laugh, but the look on his face stopped me. He wasn’t angry. He was just looking at me incredibly intensely. That was when he took a step forward, held his hand under my chin, and then brushed his thumb over my lips. His touch was so gentle, and he leaned forward, pressing his lips softly against mine. I dropped my sticks, caring not how or where they landed, wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, and pulled him in, deepening the kiss, feeling his tongue probing my mouth and then opening my lips to let him in.
I might have run onto that bridge, thinking about my life as a child, but in the middle of it, with the sun beating down on us, the sound of the bridge creaking, and the trickle of the river that flowed slowly past a hundred feet below, everything I wanted to do that involved lots of Jevyn were the actions of a woman.
I pulled away to try and get a breath. My heart was pounding in my ears, and despite my misgivings about our future, I knew that if I carried on we would end up entwined on that bridge as lovers.
“I need to explain,” I said.
“Explain what?”
“Why I brought you here. Why it means something to me.” I leaned down and picked up a handful of sticks and went to the edge of the bridge.
I bent over the edge, feeling the breeze that funneled down the narrow ravine blowing through my hair, cooling me down.
“You see down there?” I pointed to the slow-moving river.
“It’s a river.”
“It is. Have you ever heard of a book called Winnie the Pooh?”
“I’ve seen the movie. Once. Eeyore depressed me.”
I laughed. “When I was a kid, my mom and dad would read me stories from Winnie the Pooh every night. I wouldn’t have any other story read to me, just that. I used to lie in my bed, warm and tucked in under my comforter, and listen to their voices. My mom always read the story as it was, you know, the words on the pages, and I always loved to listen to her voice and hear her forming the words. She had a beautiful voice, like music, like a fairy’s voice. I believed in fairies too back then.
“When my dad read to me, he put on different voices for all the different characters, made stupid sound effects, and pulled stupid faces that made me laugh so much that my mom would tell him off for getting me overexcited. He would pretend like he was a kid and shout, ‘Okay, mom’ down the stairs and then carry on like he had before, like it was just our secret. When he was done reading, he’d lean over and kiss me on the head, and he would always say the same thing. ‘I love you, pumpkin. I’m glad I made you laugh. If you make someone laugh, they’ll always love you.’ And I always did, both my mom and dad for the different things they gave me.”
I looked over at Jevyn. He was gazing out over the water, and although I couldn’t be certain it wasn’t the breeze making his eyes water, I could see moisture there.
“So, we used to come hiking up in the mountains here, and whenever we walked across this bridge, we would play pooh sticks.”
He turned to me and wiped one eye. “Pooh sticks?”
“Yeah. You throw your stick in the water on this side and then run across the bridge to see whose stick comes through first. Always best of five.”
“This was in the book?”
“It was. Although this is like a giant-sized version of the game. In the book, it was a little wooden bridge over a tiny stream in the Hundred Acre Wood.”
“And you played this with your parents? Grown adults?”
“Yes! Of course, and I won every time.” I hesitated for a moment or two, thinking back to those gloriously carefree days. “I’m not sure my dad didn’t just say it was my stick sometimes to make sure I did win. That was just the way he was. He wanted me to be happy.”
“And now you want to challenge me to a game?”
“Only if you don’t mind getting your ass kicked by a girl.” I grinned up at him, his head silhouetted in the sun.
“Oh, I’m used to that. Famil used to beat me at everything when we were kids. She was the most competitive person I’ve ever known … and still is. Okay. Rules?”
“Pick a stick. Drop it on three. Run across the bridge and celebrate like a maniac if you win. Best of five. Winner takes all.”
“All of what?” Jevyn asked, looking puzzled.
“I have no idea,” I said. “It’s what my dad used to say.”
“Fair enough. Okay,” he said
, leaning down to pick up a stick. “Let’s go, Tigger.”
I was hopeless at imitation, but I tried doing Tigger’s voice. It was nothing like it and just prompted me to laugh even more.
Eventually we came together, in the center of the bridge. Holding our sticks over the edge, I counted to three and let go. I watched as the stick somersaulted down and then landed in the water with a quiet splash a second before Jevyn’s.
We raced across the bridge and waited.
Mine won, and like a maniac, I celebrated, jumping up and down, waving my arms in the air and hollering at the top of my voice while Jevyn trudged back across the bridge like Eeyore.
After three rounds, Jevyn was winning and had bounced up and down with equal energy.
After four rounds, we were tied, and the bridge had made a couple of slight groaning noises, which I hadn’t expected, and which seemed to worry Jevyn.
We stepped to one side for the decider, and the bridge quietened as if it was waiting to find out who won too.
“One. Two.” I dropped my stick. “Three.” Jevyn dropped his and then swiveled his head to look at me with a grin. “You noticed?” I said with a smirk.
“I noticed, but I don’t mind. I hope your stick wins. It would be nice for you to keep your unbeaten record going.”
“Oh, I will,” I said. “No dragon can beat the reigning Bounty Bridge pooh sticks champion.”
“We shall see.”
We jogged across to the other side of the bridge and leaned over to see the river and which stick it dragged through first. It seemed to take an interminable time, but eventually a stick came through.
The bridge jolted, and I screamed a short scream. Jevyn looked from one side of the bridge to the other and then over the edge at the long drop below.
“Run!” he yelled.
I ran, back the way we had come, hoping it was the way he meant. I didn’t want to check, but eventually I heard steps behind me catching up. The bridge jolted again. Then, a footstep later, I saw and heard the end of the bridge I was running toward detach. I even saw bolts flying through the air, whistling like bullets as they fell and then hit the rocks below.
Riding Rifts (Vampire's Elixir Series Book 2) Page 9