A small road leads to a small house made of the same stone as the castle.
“My humble abode,” Lee says, making a sweeping motion for me to go in as he opens the ornate stone door.
The house inside looks oddly human.
The furnishings are done in tasteful gray and beige with Burgundy accents, and nothing in the whole place shines or glimmers.
“Saving my eyesight,” Lee says, slumping in a lazy boy.
“How did they make this place?”
“It’s an enchantment, like most things here,” Lee say. “But it works. And I won’t have to be here much longer.”
“So if you get your dragon, you just plan to go to the human world and hope they don’t know you’re the one who let in the fae?”
Lee shrugs. “I haven’t thought that far along. I just want my dragon back.”
I take a seat on one of the chairs in the living room. “I feel like they’ve poisoned you with this idea. It’s terrible.”
“It’s my only option,” he says flatly, and his eyes, so blue I can’t stop staring at them, are vacant and cold.
“There’s really no other way?”
He shakes his head, then pauses, then scoffs as he looks back at me. “There is one, but it’s never happening.”
“How?”
He sits back in his chair, tapping his fingers against one robed knee. “If someone like you could mate every other dragon and then me, there’s a chance I would get a dragon power at least, since I’m now technically human. We would both get one most likely. Though, it wouldn’t make me a dragon.”
I think about it for a moment. Me plus all the other dragons. Is that possible?
A part of me scoffs at it, thinks that would be unfair to anyone. I still need to choose.
But there’s a tiny, niggling part of me that has always hated the idea of leaving any of them behind.
The same part of me that has been pulled to each of them in turn as if I can’t let go of any of them.
The way they all fell in love with me despite knowing the others wanted me also.
If I told them, would they agree? Especially if it helped Lee? They hate him right now, but I know deep down, each of them feels bad about what happened. Could they be persuaded to—
“Don’t even think about it,” Lee says, waving his hand. “I know them. They’d rather kill each other than work in pairs, let alone as a whole group. That’s half the reason I’m confident they’re going to lose tomorrow. They’ll get in each other’s way.”
“Maybe,” I say, but I’m still pondering all of it. Originally, they were all solo, but they paired up to work together or, in some cases, to be with me.
We’ve already been living in the same house together. Sharing.
I know it seems crazy, given what I know about the dragons, but it also makes an odd amount of sense.
“You put too much faith in them,” Lee says, resting back with his eyes closed, his hood up around his neck. “You don’t know them like I do.”
“You don’t know them like I do,” I say. “Byron punched out a whole crowd for me. Van saved us with his mind powers.”
“Great,” Lee says, bored. “They kick ass. That was never the problem.”
“But Van also apologized. They told me their feelings. We were together.”
Lee opens one eye, amused. “Have you been with all of them?”
“All except you,” I say.
“That’s unexpected,” he says, closing his eye again. But then he shifts a little awkwardly, and I can tell he’s still thinking about it. He opens both eyes this time, appraising me. “Would you want to try it, dragon heart? You did watch me a lot.”
I snort. “Not just as an experiment. For me, sex is an expression of feelings. That’s one thing I’ve learned from all this.”
Lee is quiet for a moment. “Feelings? Do you have them for me?”
I fold my hands in my lap. “I suppose so. Though, more for my idea of you than who you are. I fell for you from the moment I met you and I always liked seeing you on my trip here, but you aren’t who I thought.”
“No,” Lee says. “I suppose not.” He sits forward. “What would you like to do today?”
I was about to suggest flying because it’s something I do with the others, but of course Lee doesn’t have his dragon.
I’m an idiot.
Lee rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I’m sensitive about it. I’m aware all the time.”
“I know,” I say. “What do you like to do here?”
“It’s kind of nice to sit by the pool,” Lee says.
“You’ve been bored, haven’t you?”
“Very.”
“Okay,” I say with a laugh. “We’ll go to the pool.”
Instead of taking me back inside the castle, Lee walks me around the back of the house, and I see a small square pool set into the ground with little bushes around it.
There are some deck chairs set out that look just like the ones I’m used to.
“Homey,” I say, sitting down on one. I let the early afternoon wind blow my hair around my face for a moment. It smells so cool and fresh out here.
Like everything in the Blur, it’s just on the edge of familiar.
“It’s fine,” Lee says, leaning back on his chair as well. “I’m sorry if this is more boring than what you’ve done with the other dragons.”
“No,” I say, feeling utterly relaxed as the slightly dimmed sun bears down on me, warming my skin. “It’s actually nice to slow down for a bit. I’ve had four—I guess five—guys fighting for me.”
“Must be nice,” he says.
I snort. “Being almost kidnapped or killed a bunch? Sure. Nice.”
“I just meant—”
“Right, like you think an average girl like me should just enjoy being the center of attention?”
“No,” Lee says, his tone fierce now. “I just meant it sounds nice to be one of them. To be able to pursue you.” His cheeks color slightly, and he turns away. “Any human. To be a dragon, I mean.”
I watch him, slightly confused. “What do you mean?”
“I spent a lot of time in the human world, but I never connected with any woman. Ironically, not until I saw you in that library. You weren’t the first woman to stare at me, to have thoughts about how I looked. It was kind of bitter to me, that humans still found me attractive because I’d been born a dragon, even if I was one no longer.”
“Makes sense.”
“But it was different with you. I felt drawn to you. Enough that I wanted to read your mind more. I think the part of me that used to be a dragon recognized you as a dragon heart.” He lets out a sigh. “The healer in me was also touched by the thoughts about your sister. I thought if there was one woman I should make this offer to, it was you. I thought I was giving you a better future no matter what. I hate those dragons, but I was confident they would keep you alive, if only for selfish reasons.”
“It became much more than that,” I say. “If you just let me talk to them—”
“It’s too late for that,” Lee says. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t stop any of this now. It’s over. Now let’s just enjoy some sun and sit back.” He lies back against the chair, and I roll my eyes.
I stand up and walk over to him and grab the hem of his robe. “How can you get any sun with this on?”
“I get sun just fine,” he mutters, tugging his robe back.
I pull it away from him, tugging it up over his head and ignoring his struggles as I yank it off and start running away from him to toss it in the grass. No one should be in the sun in that thing. Everyone deserves sunlight, especially at the pool.
He lets out a growl as he stands from his chair, looking impossibly tall in lean jeans and a blue tee shirt, not unlike what he used to wear at the library.
For a moment, I’m taken back to those days. Watching him. The affection that grew. The way he made my life better just by existing.
He looks at his robe in
the grass, sees me step in front of it stubbornly, and then goes back to his seat.
I sigh, grabbing the robe and wrapping it up in a ball as I tuck it behind my deck chair.
Then I start to pull off my robe.
Lee blushes as he realizes I’m disrobing down to my underwear.
I grin at him shamelessly before cannonballing into the pool, holding my breath as the cold water surrounds me.
God, that feels good.
I feel a vibration in the water and open my eyes to see Lee swimming to grab me.
I try to escape, but he grabs me and pushes off the ground, taking us to the surface. His arm is so big and so strong around my waist that there’s no way I can resist.
As he starts pulling me to the end of the pool where the stairs are, I struggle harder.
“I said sit by the pool, not swim in it,” he says with a grunt. “Who knows what they put in this water.”
“Feels fine to me,” I say. “Come on. It’s beautiful here and there’s a pool, and I need to relax, dammit. Go be a poor sport somewhere else.”
He lets me go and sighs, putting his hand to his forehead to push back his soaked hair. It looks even darker when wet, though I see tiny blue strands catching the sunlight.
I walk forward and reach up to brush my fingers through it just for a second before he jerks and backs out of my grasp.
He folds his arms as he glares down at me, but all I can see are his pecs, pushing through his wet shirt.
And that face. One I came to know from just watching. The slight bump of his nose that just makes it all the more elegant. The way his jaw is so sharp it could cut razors.
The way—
He sighs as he reaches down to pull his shirt over his head.
When he does, he tosses it to the side and looks down and away from me, waiting for my judgement.
My heart falls and all thought stops as I take him in.
I never thought that’s what he was hiding under his tee shirt.
His pale body is perfect, except on his chest where deep, twisted flesh from being badly burned mars everything. It gathers around the deepest indent right over where his heart would be, and the flesh is so gnarled that it almost looks like a tree that has tried to grow around something.
He looks… hurt.
“Talk more about how I’m beautiful, dragon heart,” he says, keeping his eyes to the water. “I dare you to now.”
I take a step forward in the water, then another, then stare in wonder as I bring a finger up to trace the tortured skin. The texture is different. Smooth and hard. But not unpleasant.
“Your body is working,” I say. “This is a sign you survived the impossible.” My hand goes right to the place over his chest where the scarring is the worst. “I still think you are beautiful. Maybe more beautiful like this.”
His hand comes up to cover mine. “How could this be beautiful? It’s proof that I’m broken. Proof my dragon is gone.”
I press lightly on the surface, feeling his heart beating steadily under my hand. I look up into those eyes, blue like a clear night sky over the ocean, and smile. “You know it’s just proof you’re still here. And also proof that you’re a good person. Good dragon. Whatever you are, you’re good or you wouldn’t have jumped in front of Seth’s blast in the first place. You wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
He turns away from me. “That’s what I’m saying about dragon hearts. It’s not actually a good thing to be one. To sacrifice for other people. The hardest part is I did try to get along with them. I did try to know them. I wanted us all to get along. To help people. I failed. We all did. But why am I the only one to be punished?”
“You were the only one to be punished then,” I say. “They’ve all been punished in other ways. But bad things just happen, Lee, and sometimes they screw up our whole world. And we didn’t even have to do anything bad for them to happen.”
He eyes me carefully, and as my hand falls from his chest, I know he gets my meaning.
“Your sister,” he says softly.
“Yeah,” I say. “I wish she could have walked out with scars like these instead of what happened.” I trace my hand over his chest. “But then again, I don’t know what it’s like to lose your dragon.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to lose your sister,” Lee says. “I’ve always wanted to know what happened to make her that way.”
I blink. “Drunk driver.” I don’t like talking to anyone about this, but I’ve seen Lee’s scars, so maybe he should see mine if he wants to.
“Just some random drunk?” Lee’s eyes fill with disgust. “Your poor family.”
“It was hard. We kept thinking she would wake up, and she just didn’t. My mom lost her mind over it, and she and my dad moved away to find some peace. But they didn’t want the plug pulled, and neither did I. They felt bad when I stepped up to pay medical bills, but they were tapped out from all the hospital payments.”
Lee is quiet now, just watching me as I talk.
“But even though I had to drop out of school and watch my parents fall apart and life has sometimes been a nightmare, I’m glad I didn’t just give in to despair. I found someone who cheered me up. His name was Lee, and he was just some good-looking guy in a library. But he introduced me to this new world. He gave me a chance to change my life.”
“But—”
I rest my hand on his scars, right over his heart. “So, Lee, it’s not too late to change your life too. You could still turn back from this. You could find your new life.”
“I can’t.” His voice breaks slightly as he talks, and I can tell it’s hard to push words out past whatever he is feeling. “Anna, I can’t live without my dragon. I just can’t. Don’t ask me to do that.”
I shake my head. “You have to make your own choice. I’m just saying that no matter what, I’m happy to have met you. I’m happy to have come here. And if you change your mind and you want to reconcile with the other dragons, I’m here to help.”
He nods quickly, his jaw tight. “I appreciate it, Anna.”
I step back with a smile. “So you want to swim?” I fall onto my back and hold my breath so I can float. “Because it’s a beautiful day, and we might as well enjoy it.”
He eyes me for a moment warily. “You’re so odd, Anna. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. And I guess, if I had to say, you’re the only woman I’ve ever been interested in. Not that I ever thought I could consider you that way, but deep inside, I did relate to you. I’m just sorry it couldn’t work out better.”
“It’s okay,” I say lightly, trying not to think about all the stress. “Just come float by me. Relax for a minute.”
Then he does, and as we both look at the sky, I let my heart try to figure out how I’m going to save all of my dragons.
I have to try.
Chapter 22
After swimming, we eat lunch on our deck chairs, and though I sometimes feel wracked with worry about Griffin and the others, I still believe Seth is right about me trying to get through to Lee.
That’s not the only reason I’m spending time with him, though. I genuinely like him when he shows me the Lee that doesn’t just live to hate the other dragons.
When I see the kind man behind the hard mask.
We’re both enjoying sandwiches (and the late-afternoon sunlight) when I see the doors from the castle open, letting a group of fae out onto the path that leads to Lee’s guest house.
“Uh-oh,” Lee says.
“Why?”
“They don’t come out that often.”
He stands and steps in front of me to greet them. “What is it?”
One of the fae looks at me nervously, then at Lee. “Nerrenth wants the human brought to his chambers when you’re done with her.”
I can’t see Lee’s face, but I see his whole body stiffen. “What? Why would he possibly want that?”
“He says since you don’t want her, he would like to be the first fairy to sleep with a human. Since her
companions are going to be here tomorrow, he thought it was a good time.”
Oh God, I think, heart pounding wildly.
Lee isn’t in love with me like the other dragons. He has no reason to protect me right now. He just wants his dragon back, and Nerrenth is the key to that. He won’t upset him for—
“No,” Lee says flatly, voice lower than I’ve ever heard it.
“But, sir,” the fae says. “Nerrenth will be very angry. Maybe even—”
Lee walks forward and grabs the fae by the front of his robe, lifting him with one hand. When he gets in the fae’s face, his growl is feral. “No one touches her while she’s under my protection. No one.”
Then he drops the fae, who stumbles back with a little squeak into the arms of his compatriots.
“Tell Nerrenth if he has a problem with that to come see me directly,” Lee snarls. “But I’ll be busy with the human, in my chambers.”
They all look around at each other and then slowly nod, ready to retreat. “Of course. We will tell him you changed your mind about wanting the human woman. Of course.”
The fae scuttle away nervously, leaving Lee still standing in front of me, shoulders tight, chest heaving.
I slump in relief onto the chair, feeling faint. “Oh my God, I thought you would let them take me.”
Lee is quiet as he picks up his things and heads back toward his house. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk.
I run over to him, following him inside as he walks up the stairs and over to a bathroom.
He goes in and runs water over his face like he’s trying to refresh himself, but then he sighs, looking over impatiently. “What?”
“I just wanted to know why you said no to Nerrenth,” I say quietly. “I mean, you don’t like me.”
“I never said that,” Lee says. “I do like you, Anna. To be honest, no one could watch you as long as I have and not want you. You’re kind. You’re brave. But I didn’t plan to get closer to you knowing I might end up betraying you if you fell for the dragons. I have some scruples.”
“You want me?” I ask, grabbing his shoulder and making him face me, which he does reluctantly.
Soul of the Dragons: Bad Dragons Page 14