Maybe, just possibly, could it be that she didn’t want to hide from Mayah? That something Ragnor did was preventing her from coming out?
“So something’s keeping her imprisoned?”
“I’m not sure.” He hesitated. “I had the feeling—she might have locked herself in there.”
Mayah suddenly felt like throwing up. “Why would she do that?” she whispered.
“I’m not sure. You kissed me before I could ask her. It brought me back.”
Great, she thought. The first real clue to what was wrong with her dragon, and she’d fucked it up. Go me.
“Any ideas, at least?”
Tristan toyed with his cheesecake. “She said something about her hoard. There were dark shadowy mounds around the edges of the cave, but I couldn’t see what they were. She told me she was guarding them.”
Mayah’s eyes filled with tears.
“Hey.” Tristan’s eyes had gone dark with worry. “Shit. Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “You don’t understand.”
He came and sat down next to her. Not too close, she noticed. She wished like hell he would hug her, just hold her so she could feel better. Even as a friend.
“Try me,” he said.
She sighed. He wasn’t a dragon; he wouldn’t get it.
But he was sitting there, looking at her with those gorgeous eyes. Troubled and serious, like it really bothered him that she was upset.
Because he was a healer, she reminded herself. And a good friend.
Maybe it would make her feel better to tell someone who cared—even if he didn’t care the way she wanted him to.
“It’s—we couldn’t really have hoards, growing up with Ragnor. He wouldn’t let us. I know now that a hoard makes a Draken more powerful. Magically, I mean, as well as more psychologically stable, and Ragnor didn’t want that.”
She drew lines in the top of her cheesecake with her fork.
“But we did it anyway, of course. In secret. Emon has his atherias pieces. And I had—” She broke off. “It doesn’t matter.”
She couldn’t tell him about her hoard. That was for only the most special people in a dragon’s life—people who wanted to be close to her. “But I did it, even though I was scared Ragnor would punish me. Not just for me. But for my dragon too.”
Tristan looked like he wanted to ask her more about that, but he didn’t. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” he said instead. “It was pretty damn brave of you, considering that Ragnor was controlling you with magic. It took a lot to defy him.”
Mayah gave a little one-shouldered shrug. “Yeah. I guess. It’s just that—well, obviously my pathetic little hoard wasn’t enough for her. My dragon went off into the spirit world and made her own. She didn’t even tell me.”
She couldn’t put into words how much that hurt. That her other half had judged her and decided she wasn’t worthy. That what she had to give wasn’t worthy.
Just like Tristan had done.
Her newfound resolutions started to crumble. She’d told herself that she could love him even if he didn’t love her, but they were only like, an hour into the rest of her life and it was already hurting more than she could have imagined.
More than she could handle.
“She’s not going to come out,” Mayah said. “Why should she, when she has somewhere else to be?”
All her hopeful, crazy plans were crashing down around her. She would always be broken.
And without her dragon, she was too vulnerable to Gen-X. She couldn’t go to Earth, or try to have a life. She was stuck here with nothing but ghosts.
Tristan said, “I want to go back.”
She stared at him “What?”
“If I can get in there once, maybe I can do it again. Maybe, if I go back, I can convince her to come out.”
“No offense, but why would she listen to you?”
Tristan shrugged. “Maybe she won’t. But this is the closest anyone has gotten to her. Even Brock could just barely sense her. He didn’t actually see her.”
That was true. Brock Reilly was the shifter animal whisperer, and he’d hardly made any progress with her dragon.
Tristan said, “I’m thinking… when you healed me from that wound on my neck—when you saved my life—maybe it gave us some kind of connection. And if I could use that connection to talk to your dragon…”
It might work. For the first time in a long time, Mayah felt a tiny ray of hope.
“Let me help you,” Tristan said. “Let me help her.”
And if they were connected, she could help him too. Fix whatever damage he’d done to his brain when he’d used it as a weapon to protect her.
While he was talking to her dragon, she’d be helping him. And then maybe, when she knew he was healed and he could have a good life, somehow she could let him go.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s try it. Tonight.”
Chapter 7
They had to wait until late, because Mayah had a date to watch chick flicks with Trish while Emon took care of some administrative business.
Tristan tried not to mind. He knew Mayah didn’t want to cancel. Trish was her only friend here, and Mayah looked forward to their girls’ nights.
And they didn’t want to have to explain to anyone what they were trying to do, either. Not until they figured out if it would work.
He spent the intervening time in his room trying to get some rest so his brain wouldn’t collapse into goo when he tried to go back to the dragon’s lair.
But he kept finding himself pacing restlessly. He felt like this was his last chance to do something for Mayah. To heal and protect her.
To make sure she didn’t turn into one of his failures—one of his ghosts.
Finally, it was time.
They’d decided to do it up on the top of the main tower—someplace out of the way but safe, where they could see the sky, and with enough room for Mayah to Change if her dragon really did decide to come out.
There was an awkward silence after they greeted each other. Mayah looked nervous, and Tristan’s head was aching.
“So, I guess we should just do this?” he said.
“Okay. Um. How should we do it?”
Tristan approached her hesitantly, and put his hands gently on either side of her face. He felt a fierce desire to kiss her again, but nothing but bad things lay down that road.
He closed his eyes, inhaling her scent, and went searching for her dragon.
He built a picture of her lair in his mind, including every detail he could think of: The shape of the dark, shadowy cave. The barred door. The shadowy mounds of… something… that lined the interior. The way they seemed to move when he wasn’t looking at her.
The dragon. The feel of her huge presence. Her glowing green eyes.
He felt a rushing wind at his back, and it picked him up and carried him along, as if he’d fallen into a river in flood.
And then he was there.
The wind receded, and everything grew quiet. He felt stone under his feet, heard the far-off drip of water and the rustle of wings.
He looked around. A great dark bulk moved and stretched, and then twin green lanterns were looking down at him.
“Yup. It’s me. We didn’t get to finish our conversation.”
“Yeah. You keep saying that. Here’s the thing,” he said. He didn’t know how much time he’d have, so he decided to go straight to the point. “I love Mayah.”
There. He’d said it. Even if technically it was only in his mind. Although, the dragon didn’t seem impressed.
Fine. Whatever. It mattered to him, and he was glad he’d said it. “I love her. And she really misses you. She needs you. She’s hurting, and I can’t let that happen. So I came to ask you to come back, so you two can be one like you’re supposed to be.”
slowly. Then they moved closer to him, as the dragon lowered her head.
Tristan didn’t move. Things that happened in the spirit world could be reflected in the real world. He didn’t want to get bitten in half and then find out it really wasn’t all a dream.
Mayah’s dragon sniffed at him. she said.
True love. “Like fated mates?” he asked. Of course it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be.
“I’m not capable of that,” he said. “I wish I were. I want that for her.” And he wanted it for himself. More than he would ever admit.
The dragon drew her head back.
Tristan was starting to get pissed off. “I get that, already. But I can’t make it true love just by wanting it.”
Now what the fuck was that supposed to mean?
The dragon answered as if he’d actually spoken.
Tristan growled. He didn’t care if she was a fucking dragon. “You don’t know shit about me,” he said. “Trust me, nobody wants to see inside me. And it’s not safe for them to love me. At best, I let people down. At worst, I hurt them.”
He stepped in, looking up at the dark monster. “And who the hell are you to talk about holding back and staying safe? You’ve locked yourself in a fucking cave, all safe here in the spirit world, and left Mayah on her own. You’re no better than I am.”
“So am I!”
“I don’t—” He started to say he didn’t want her hoard. Then he stopped, looking at the moving shadows.
“What is this? What is your hoard?”
Holy hell. Mayah’s ghosts. Tristan backed away from the dragon, away from the shadowy forms, until he hit the bars that blocked the door.
Tristan pressed against the bars. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he did. And he couldn’t get away from her.
The dragon reached out a huge claw, and tore open his mind.
The vault broke open with a blinding light. He saw them all, the ghosts of all the ones he’d lost, the ones he’d betrayed.
His parents. The Winterhome wolf pack. His sister Terin, this time. Lying injured in a cave in Idaho, with Frank Beckenham’s team closing in.
I have to leave you, he was telling her. I have to lead Beckenham and the others away until you heal.
Terin saying, It’s okay. I’ll find you again. I’ll always find you.
And him thinking that if she tries to find him, she’ll always be in danger. Looking out through the mouth of the cave, he sees a truck coming along the lonely dirt road. An old beat-up pickup, with a lone man driving.
He has to save Terin. He has to make her forget him. Forget everything. And live.
He puts his hand on her head, and draws out all her memories. Takes them from her and hides them deep inside himself.
She wouldn’t remember him. She wouldn’t remember anything. But she would live.
The truck is coming closer now. It’s disappeared into a hollow, but he can hear it still coming.
He lifts his little sister and runs to the side of the road, before the truck can top the rise and see him. He lays her down gently and kisses her forehead.
I’m sorry, he murmurs. And then he vanishes into the woods. Behind him, he hears the truck stop, and the man get out.
“I had to do it,” he said to the dragon. “I didn’t want her to get captured. I didn’t want her to die. And she didn’t. She’s okay. I saved her.”
Her claw dug another gash in his vault.
More memories spilled out. Bright lights and scalpels. Electric shocks and forced changes. Fire hoses, breathing water, drowning, drowning.
Rage and hate and blood in his mouth. The triumph of the kill. Going wolf, and never wanting to come back.
Tank’s grizzly slapping him down when he tried to kill a human. Flynn and Tank and the Bad Bloods locking him in the crazy shed. Trying to find his human side.
“NO!”
He shoved at the cage door with his body and his mind. The door burst open and Tristan ran, ghosts howling behind him.
Chapter 8
Tristan jerked back to consciousness, pulling his hands away from Mayah’s head. But she had her hands on his face too, holding his head in an iron grip.
He felt her in his mind, felt her energy rushing through the circuits of his brain. Holding the vault open. Letting the ghosts out.
Just like her dragon.
“What the hell are you doing? Stop that!” he shouted. She had to stop. She didn’t understand what Wolf would do.
She jerked back. “I’m healing you.”
“Without even asking me? What the hell is wrong with you?”
She stared at him.
“I care about you, that’s what’s wrong with me! And you were never going to let me try. Your brain is splitting at the fucking seams, and you’re just like, ‘Everything’s fine, Mayah. Everything’s awesome!’”
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he whispered.
He could feel the crazy rising up inside him. The part of him that would do anything to make the pain go away.
The monster inside him that could only be assuaged by blood—blood and death. He could hear the ghosts calling out for him, calling for him to save them.
He couldn’t. It was too late. They were gone.
Dimly, through the roar of voices, he heard Mayah. “Tristan,” she said. “Let me help you!”
“You can’t help me,” he snarled. “I’ll just hurt you. Why can’t you figure that out?”
“You won’t hurt me.”
He grabbed her shoulders, feeling his fingers bruising the soft flesh. “Maybe I want to. Maybe I want to hurt everyone.” He yanked her up against him. “You want me to be this kind, gentle healer. I’m not. I’m not a good person. Don’t you get that?”
She was so beautiful. So soft. And he wanted soft, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. He needed hard, wild, crazy.
He backed her roughly up against the stone wall and claimed her mouth, his kiss hard and punishing. Her lip split, and he could taste the blood.
His wolf snarled, deep in his chest. He wanted to rip her clothes off and take her right here, thrust himself in her hard until all the pain was gone, all the hurt, all the horror. He wanted to lose himself in her, not even caring what she needed because he needed her so much.
He needed to empty himself in her and have her hold him until he found something to live for.
His wolf snarled again. Devour her. He felt his fangs manifesting, smelled the blood rushing through the veins in her neck. Bite. Blood.
Tristan let go of Mayah and stumbled backwards, his wolf shivering his bones until they started to snap. Mayah stared back at him, her eyes wide in the darkness, glowing green.
And he got the fuck out of there.
Mayah stood on top of the tower, shaking, staring at the doorway where Tristan had disappeared. She could hear his footsteps on the stone stairs, running down.
She felt the exact moment he turned wolf. She heard the churning thoughts in his mind even before she heard his claws on the stone.
Still running.
Dammit! She’d screwed it up. She’d tried to fix him, and she’d only made things worse.<
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She could still feel him, though. Like that piece of him she held in her heart was a tracker, that knew exactly where he was.
She knew when he hit the bottom of the stairs, when he crossed the courtyard and left the castle, when he left the fields behind and entered the forest.
Running, running. Away from everything that had been done to him; away from everything he’d lost. The burden of pain he carried was more than any creature could carry alone.
No wonder he’d locked it away. Tried to be something he wasn’t.
Tried to be normal.
They would never be normal, either one of them. They knew pain and torture and unending betrayal.
But there was one thing Tristan didn’t know.
She loved him. He was her wolf, and she loved him, and love was magic. Love was a miracle. Love could do anything. Love could save anyone.
All their lives, she and her brother had saved each other over and over, by loving each other. Emon and Trish had saved each other. Tris’s friends, the Bad Blood crew—Kira’s crew—had saved each other with the power of their love for their crew, and the power of their love for their mates.
Tristan couldn’t be saved with healers, with psychology, or by locking his pain away and pretending it never happened.
He could only be saved by love.
For the first time since the day she and Emon had been rescued from Ragnor, Mayah heard her dragon’s voice.
She was so stunned her knees gave out, and she slid her back down the stone wall until her butt hit the ground.
Seriously? Gone for two years, and all she could manage was to be Princess Obvious?
I knew that, Mayah said. Where were you?
He didn’t know any better. He was just trying to help us.
Well, that didn’t sound like any fun. Saving all her horrible memories sounded like a sucky idea.
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