by Amelia Jade
After a moment it was over, and he let the now-useless wires fall to the ground.
“Zander?!” Riss cried.
“Yes.” His voice caught slightly as an aftershock rushed through him, but he shook it off with a violent shiver.
“What the hell?” she exclaimed, shaking her head in astonishment and rushing forward to him. “Are you okay? Why the hell did you sneak up on me like that?”
He swallowed, taking a deep breath as his system returned to normal. “I am okay.”
“That’s good. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re sneaking up on me in an alley.”
Zander looked at her in confusion. “I didn’t sneak up on you. I strode down here making plenty of noise. Did you not hear my shoes scraping and echoing? If I were sneaking, you wouldn’t have heard me until I was next to you.” He said it matter-of-factly, surprised she didn’t understand.
“That is not enough,” she snapped. “You need to warn someone when you’re doing something like that. You know, speak up!”
“Riss,” he said, holding out a hand to placate her. “I did speak up. Or I tried to, but you decided it would be best to try and use your little electrical device on me.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Excuse me? Are you accusing me of jumping the gun?”
To his surprise, and evidently hers as well, he laughed.
“What the hell’s so funny, mister?” she snapped, hands on her hips.
Shaking his head, Zander fought to restrain himself. “I’m sorry,” he sputtered. “It’s just that I couldn’t tell you how many times I have heard that line, but directed at myself.”
It was her turn to arch an eyebrow, inviting further explanation.
“Apparently,” he said, acting like he didn’t believe it, “I am prone to rash action and snap decisions, without thinking it all the way through.”
Riss rolled her eyes. “Sure you are. You seem pretty stoic and thinking to me.”
“Well, Riss Levion, don’t take this personally, but you are a human, and I am a dragon. You can’t hold me to your standards.”
The perky little girl—no, woman, he corrected—rocked back on her heels, brown hair with black streaks bouncing around her shoulders as she did. Zander watched with keen interest as her intriguing gray eyes thought about his words, applying an intelligence to them that he was beginning to suspect few realized she had.
“Are you really that different than humanity?” she asked slowly. “After all, you are part human.”
“It’s simply a matter of perspective,” he explained as they stood there in the alleyway. “When your lifespan is measured in centuries, not decades, you begin to lose your sense of urgency. When I was young, the human side of me ruled even more so than it does now. But as I’ve aged, I have mellowed. I think. Not that my fellow dragons would likely agree,” he joked.
Riss smiled. “I can understand that, I guess. Intellectually at least.”
“Excellent.”
“And,” she hesitated. “I’m sorry for Tasing you.” She winced.
“I am unharmed,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “So all is forgiven.”
“Why are you here though?” she asked.
“To walk you home.”
“Why?”
He paused, not having anticipated the question. “For your safety, of course.”
Riss looked at him, and slowly, with exaggerated motions, released the leads from her Taser, letting them fall to the ground. Then she reached into her bag, fumbling around for a moment before she pulled out a replacement pair. They snapped into place, and she waved it around menacingly.
“I’m okay,” she said with a tight smile. “But thank you. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Zander made to protest, but she was already walking down the alleyway, heading in the opposite direction. He sighed and waited, counting to twenty, and then started out after her.
This time he sneaked along.
He wasn’t sure where she lived, but he could hazard a guess that based on where they were in town, and the direction she was heading, that Riss lived in the northeast quadrant. Not the best part of town, though Cadia was too small to have a truly seedy area. Besides, the Guardians patrolled everywhere fairly regularly. Crime was infrequent.
Tonight will be different though.
He kept her in sight, or just out of it, following her down streets and through alleys as she made her way home.
If it was going to happen, it would happen—
“Hold it right there.”
A male voice echoed between the two brick buildings up ahead, and he heard Riss gasp in surprise. “Who are you? What do you want?” he heard her ask.
“The money.”
Zander nodded. He’d thought as much.
“What money?” Riss asked, and he heard the slightest waver in her voice. “Hey, back up!” she said, and the threat was clear. She must have pulled her Taser on him.
“Hand it over, now,” the voice repeated. “I won’t ask again.”
Okay, that’s just about enough.
Zander began to creep forward, hoping to get as close as he could before anything else happened.
The snap-buzz of her Taser sounded and he realized things were escalating faster than he’d planned.
With a growl he stepped forward, out of the shadows and into the light, ten feet behind Riss. She was still backing away from the shifter, her Taser dragging uselessly on the ground.
“That is enough,” he ground out, his voice low but threatening, a whipcord snapping through the night.
The shifter came to an immediate halt.
“Who the hell are you?” he snapped.
Wolf. Typical.
“A Guardian,” he replied through gritted teeth, doing his best not to dart forward and rip the man in two.
In front of him, Riss turned to look at him with newfound respect in her smoky gray orbs.
“Now that’s funny. Get going before you get hurt,” the man snarled.
Zander shook his head. Clearly the wolf didn’t realize what he was up against.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked in a casual conversational tone.
“I will be if you don’t beat it.”
The dragon shifter turned to Riss. “He threatened you, and now he’s threatening me. Am I reading this situation correct?”
Her brown eyebrows furrowed together as she pursed her lips. “Maybe, but what does that mean? What are you going to do?”
“He’s not going to do anything. Now hand over the money.”
The wolf had produced a knife from somewhere and began to wave the six-inch tempered steel blade at both of them.
“Okay, that’s a threat no matter what anyone says,” Zander explained.
“What happens now?” Riss asked, no trace of nerves in her voice now.
“Now,” Zander said, his voice dropping deeper as he turned to face the unknown assailant. “I deal with the situation.”
He moved, his legs a blur as he closed on his opponent. The wolf shifter was quick, and the knife whipped around to stab at Zander, but he was no longer there, spinning inside the wolf’s grip. His left elbow came up around and smashed into the left side of the man’s face, while his right hand clamped on the wrist holding the knife, and squeezed.
The attacker screamed and dropped the knife.
Zander thought the fight over, until a knee came up and took him in the back, numbing his spine as he fell to the ground from the unexpected blow.
More fight in him than I gave him credit for. Won’t make that mistake a second time.
Shaking off the feeling, Zander got to his feet just as the wolf jumped at him.
There was something about the way he jumped that was off, but Zander didn’t recognize it until he was plowed over by a massive midnight-black wolf with silver streaks through it.
“Right. Quick shift attack,” he muttered, grabbing the animal by the ribcage before it could do anything else and hurling it int
o the brick wall next to him.
The wolf yelped and Zander followed up by rolling to his feet and delivering a kick that snapped the wolf’s head back before it could recover.
Three-inch-long fangs snapped at him, but he dodged out of range, and then flew back in with a fist that jerked the head around. Yellow eyes rolled up into his head and the wolf collapsed to the ground with a limp thud.
Zander collected himself, still shaking off the last of the numbness in his spine as he stood up, wiping his hands on his pants.
“Can I walk you home?” he asked once more as he faced her.
“Yeah, you know what? Suddenly that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea,” she said with a slightly jerky nod.
He moved up alongside her, bringing her inside his personal space, where he could protect her best.
“It will be okay,” he reassured her, noting a slight wobble in her steps.
“I… I know,” she replied. “I’ve been threatened before, but just never quite so seriously. They usually back off. And then you, with the punches, and holy shit.”
He readied himself to snag her waist if she lost control, but once again, strength greater than her flimsy human body looked like it possessed showed through. Riss shook herself and stood up straight.
“So, you’re a Guardian,” she said after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Why were you so reluctant to tell me that earlier?” she asked, pointing in the direction they had to go as the narrow passage between buildings opened up into a street intersection.
“I wasn’t reluctant,” he said.
Riss sighed. “You didn’t answer my question though. When I asked you earlier in the shop, you avoided answering by instead asking a question of your own. Why not just answer?”
“I liked the way you looked at me,” he replied. Then, at a gesture from her to continue, “I appreciated that you treated me like a normal person, without any fear or unfounded respect in your eyes, just because of a gold badge I sometimes wear.”
Riss fell silent for several minutes, and they walked on together, neither feeling the need to speak. It was, to the normally conversation-happy Zander, a unique feeling of being so comfortable with someone that he neither wanted, nor felt the need to speak.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have to fake his interest in her entirely while he courted her for his mother to see.
***
Riss
The steps leading to her second-floor apartment rose up in front of her. It wasn’t much, but it was all her meager pay at Challer’s would let her afford. With most of Cadia inhabited by shifters who lived at least several decades more than most humans, money wasn’t something they tended to lack. Indeed, many, like her newfound—friend? She wasn’t sure what to call him—came from families with very, very deep pockets. Not so Riss, whose mother had come from nothing, and who had married a shifter without much to his name either. When they’d left Cadia for one of the smaller shifter strongholds, they’d not had much to give her.
So, this was all she had. A two-bedroom, second-floor apartment above an elderly bear shifter. Mrs. Dorrlean was a wonderful lady whose mate had passed on a few years earlier. The two of them got along quite well, which was a relief compared to her normal interactions with shifters—like the encounter earlier that evening.
But Riss wanted more. More than a wooden staircase that creaked nervously as the heavy dragon shifter followed her up it. More than windows with bars over them, not that they would do any good against a determined shifter. She wanted a showerhead with decent water pressure, and a real wood fireplace. Hardwood floors instead of old carpet, and a stove with four working burners, not just the two she was lucky to coax to life most of the time.
There was no dirt, no mold, nothing like that. She kept her place clean. It was just run down. Of the money she had earned today, some would go toward fixing that. Perhaps she could finally get someone to come look at the air conditioning next spring, so she didn’t sweat to death. But either way, it wasn’t much of a living. She wondered what Zander thought of it. He probably was looking at it with disdain compared to the castle he likely lived in.
Anger mounted in her, and she spun on her heels, stopping him a step below the landing, so that they were closer to the same height.
“How did you know?” she grilled, flicking her index finger at him.
“Know what?” he asked, looking around in confusion.
“The man, tonight. With the knife. How did you know someone was going to attack me? You came up to me in the alley and said that you were walking me home for my own protection. Explain that.”
“It made sense.”
Riss clenched her fists together tightly.
“For a supposedly loquacious dragon shifter, you certainly don’t say a whole lot of meaningful things, you know.”
Zander reared back, looking hurt by her words. “I’m sorry, what would you like me to do?”
“Explain to me how you knew it made sense. Make me see why it did, perhaps? Why else would I ask?”
“Because you—”
Riss flicked a hand up, stopping him mid-sentence. “You know what, no. Forget I asked that last question. I don’t want to hear it. You were probably going to say something sage like ‘Because you didn’t know.’ Right?”
At least this time Zander had the good graces to look embarrassed.
“Figures,” she snorted. “Now explain the mugging.”
The big dragon shifter, whose brown eyes still tinged with that intense brassy coloring to them, was on her level now. She could stare straight at him, and Riss ruthlessly used that to her advantage, trying to show him how frustrated he made her sometimes.
“It started with your boss,” Zander said. “I saw him when I paid you in cash. His eyes lit up. I figured you were strong enough to insist on being paid commission. For him, it would be easiest to just dole that out from the bills I gave him. But he wasn’t going to be okay with that. He’s got sticky fingers, and wanted it all. From there, it was simple inference that he would contact someone and have them retrieve what he saw as ‘his’ money from you, on the way home.”
Her jaw dropped open. “You got all that from his reaction?”
“Yes.”
“That seems like a long way to go, lots of conclusions to jump to,” she said. “Assuming my boss would have me jumped just for some cash?”
“Someone did attack you,” Zander said, his voice hardening as he defended his position. “And they didn’t ask ‘for your money.’ They asked for the money. Whoever that man was, he had been informed that you were carrying cash on you.”
Riss shrugged. “So maybe it was you who told him that. That way you’d have an excuse to walk me home.”
The dragon shifter’s eyes narrowed, and she saw something deep within whip into a fury. “I would never deceive you like that,” he said, his voice like thunderclouds forming in his eyes.
“How do I know that? I barely know anything about you.”
“What do you wish to know? I will tell you anything I can. But you can trust me, I did not set you up. If I wanted to take your money, or to walk with you, there is little you could do about it.”
The sandy-haired shifter didn’t so much as loom up over her as did the force of his will, showing her without word and without action, just how powerful he was. Brass-brown eyes stared her down from out under slightly bushy eyebrows. His lips formed a thin line, surrounded by the clean shaven skin of his face.
No, Zander wasn’t lying, she realized. If he wanted something, he simply would take it.
“Okay,” she said, trying not to show her submission to his point too easily. “Thank you for the escort home.”
With a short nod, she took out her keys and made to insert them in the lock.
Riss cursed as her fingers fumbled over them and dropped them on the ground. A quick glance behind her showed Zander still standing on the last step, looking at her curiously.
Dammit. Now he pro
bably thinks I’m a bumbling fool!
It shocked her to realize she actually did care what he thought about her. With a grimace, she stepped inside instead and shut the door, leaning back against it. Her head hit the wood with a thud, but she didn’t notice.
There. You’re inside. He’s outside. Now his broad shoulders and thick arms can just go…go somewhere else! Some other woman can fall for the way he brushes his hair from his forehead in just such a lovely manner.
You’re drooling, woman.
It’s fine. I’m not going to open the door though.
Don’t open the door.
Don’t do it.
Riss felt like yelling at herself as her body began to move of its own accord. She pushed off from the door and slowly spun to face it. A hand reached for the lock without her permission, and she tried to pull it back.
The fingers closed around the brass deadbolt and began to twist, even as she ordered her brain to reverse direction.
“Oh fine,” she said and gave in, sliding the bolt across and opening the door.
Zander was now on the landing, his back to her as he stared out onto the street below.
“This would be a nice place to watch the sun rise,” he commented, without turning.
“You aren’t staying the night, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said automatically, grateful that at least her mouth was still under her control.
“No,” he said slowly, his deep voice filling the little overhanging porch area where she occasionally sat with a tea in the mornings.
“It is a beautiful sunrise though,” she said.
Her apartment faced the east, and being on the second floor, it rose above a number of single-story buildings between her and the horizon. There were perhaps only three blocks of buildings before the town of Cadia ended and the wilderness began to take over, with more and more trees and bushes popping up between buildings. Farther out, it became nothing but a thick forest line racing into the distance.
In the mornings as the sun came up, it began to work its way across the trees. She enjoyed watching, especially now in the fall, when it began to illuminate the various shades of leaves in a display of color that made each morning easier to handle.
There wouldn’t be many mornings left, as the sun continued to rise later and later in the day. Another week or two at most, and it would still be dark before she had to leave for work, much to her dismay.