“Come on.” Mayah dropped to her hands and knees and crawled inside. Intrigued, Tristan crawled in after her.
There was already a light globe at the top of the igloo, that put out gentle heat. Mayah was sitting on the floor, conjuring piles of quilted capes and fluffy terrycloth bathrobes.
“Creative clothing magic,” she said. “Also known as towels and blankets.”
“Nice workaround,” he said, grabbing a bathrobe and starting to dry his braided hair. “I think I like hangin’ with magical people.”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling wickedly. “It’s all fun and games until someone sets the table on fire.”
Tristan laughed. “I kind of like that part of it,” he said. “Reminds me of home. With the Bad Bloods.”
She looked up at him. “Do you miss them?” she asked. “I thought Silverlake was home to you now.”
He dropped to his knees beside her. “I tried to make it home,” he said. “But I never quite felt like I fit in.”
He moved around behind her and wrapped the robe-towel around her hair, slowly rubbing it dry. “I do miss the Bad Bloods,” he said. “As fucked-up as they are. They’re my brothers. And sister.”
And they’d been through so much together. Flynn, their grumpy and possibly insane lion alpha, Jasmin the totally badass jaguar who loved to cook. Xander the panther—wild and crazy, with a huge heart buried under his mountains of attitude. Sloan, the quiet one, who was always there when they needed him.
And grizzly bear Tank, the best friend he’d ever had.
Even though Silverlake had his sister and the healers he’d needed, even though Trish had been an amazing friend to him there, he missed the Bad Bloods all the time.
“Would you go back?” she asked.
“Maybe.” He didn’t know, now. If Mayah needed him—if there was even a tiny chance things would work out for them—he would stay here as long as she’d let him.
He wondered if she’d ever consider going to live with the Bad Bloods, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t know what this was between them, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to risk fucking it up by presuming she’d want to follow him wherever he went.
And anyway, she was a princess. With a castle. Why would she want to go live in a cabin in the woods?
He moved the towel down over her shoulders, down her breasts, rubbing her dry. She leaned her head back on his shoulder, making happy sexy noises.
He abandoned the towel, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples with his fingers until they turned to hard pink pebbles. Her dragon rumbled deep in her chest, and his hands stilled in surprise.
“She’s back!”
“Of course she is.” Mayah turned to face him, her eyes glowing green, with slitted catlike pupils. “How do you think I got all the way out here? I flew.”
Tristan stared. “Did I do that? Bring her back?”
Mayah rolled her eyes. “Yes. Why do you always assume you suck at everything?”
“Because I usually do.”
Mayah put her hands flat on his chest. “I can think of several things you don’t suck at,” she told him, pushing him backward. “And I want to do them all again. Plus everything else I can think of.”
This time it was slow and sweet. Mayah explored his body, getting that sexy wicked smile on her face every time she discovered a new place that made him shiver or suck in his breath when she touched it.
He discovered she loved kissing. It made her soft and wet and wanting, rubbing herself up against him like she could never touch him enough, her dragon purring.
And when she drew her tongue up his shaft and slowly took him in her mouth, he thought he might as well die right there.
She straddled his shaft and took him inside of her, slow and leisurely, closing her eyes and letting the sensations take her away.
He didn’t close his eyes—he couldn’t bear not to watch the play of light on her skin, the way she looked transported in ecstasy because he was touching her.
It was like floating away on an ocean of emotion and sensation, the waves rising and rising, until he had to pull her close and feel her all around him so he wouldn’t lose himself.
But he did anyway. The waves took him, and he held onto Mayah because she was the only thing keeping him from drowning, and then he went under, pushing into her harder, rolling with the waves.
I’m here, she said softly in his mind. We’re together…
And he was okay again.
A long time later, Mayah lay next to Tristan inside her magical hut. She’d dimmed the light globe to a romantic glow, and was running her fingers through Tristan’s half-dried hair.
He lay on his stomach, his chin on his folded arms as she combed her fingers through the silky blond strands, spreading them out across his back.
He’d gone quiet again, pulling back into himself the way he so often did. He’d let her in, just for a little while, letting her touch him and love him and be there for him, and now he’d shut the doors again.
His mind still had so many closed-off parts. Festering wounds, that would never heal as long as they stayed in the darkness.
Tonight was only the beginning of the road to healing. There was still a long way to go for both of them.
And she still had a tiny cold fear inside her that Tristan would refuse to walk that road with her.
She ran her fingers through his hair again.
“Tell me something you’ve always wanted to do,” she said. “Something you never had the chance to, because of… everything.”
He didn’t say anything at first. Because he was thinking? Or because he wasn’t going to answer?
She had the feeling loving Tristan was going to need a lot of patience, and that sucked for both of them because she really wasn’t that good at patience.
But she waited anyway, breathing slowly and deeply like she used to do when Emon was in a frustrated rage, ready to explode, and she was afraid Ragnor would hurt him.
Talking hadn’t helped. The only thing that helped was just being with him, and giving him space to feel how he felt.
Eventually, her hard-won patience was rewarded. There was a tiny shift in his muscles and he took a deep breath, then let it out and relaxed.
“Go on vacation,” he said.
She laughed in surprise. “Really? Me too.”
Kira had had to explain the concept of “vacation” to her. Getting away from your life for a little while, visiting somewhere new just for fun. She loved it. She wanted to do it.
“Yeah?” He turned his head to look at her.
“Yeah. Where would you want to go? And what would you want to do?”
He thought about it. “Somewhere the opposite of Montana and Idaho. China. India. Bali. Where everything is different—the food and the people, the clothes and the colors. And I’d just walk around a city and explore. New sights, new smells. Something unexpected around every corner.”
He turned over, sweeping his hair over his shoulder so she could keep playing with it. “Where would you go?”
She had a list. Ever since they’d gotten the internet and she’d seen all the places there were to go, she’d been making it. “Earth. Switzerland. I want to see those fairy-tale castles. And go on one of those riverboat cruises where they take you to see them all.”
“You already have a castle,” Tristan pointed out.
“So what’s your point?” she said, tugging gently on his hair and smiling to show she was teasing. “And then I’d want to go somewhere like Dubai, where everything is brand-new and modern and glittery. I want to go to the very top of that crazy tall building and jump off, and glide all the way down.”
Tristan laughed. “Better cloak yourself, or they’ll send anti-aircraft drones after you.”
“They wouldn’t catch me,” she said. “I’m magic. And I want to go to Iceland, and bathe in the hot springs when it’s freezing cold out. And see glaciers and waterfalls and volcanoes.”
Her voice grew dreamy. “And
I want to fly way, way up in the air and see the curve of the Earth, and realize how big it is. So big that it would take a dragon’s lifetime to see it all. And I could fly and fly until my wings were tired, and only get a little bit of the way around it.”
“Freedom,” Tristan said. “And space.”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t want to leave here for always,” she said, “but I want to see other places. Stretch my wings.”
“Not settle down.”
She shrugged. “Home is nice. But I told you. I want to do All The Things. I want to go out there and live.” She touched her chest, feeling her dragon nestled inside her, like she’d never been gone. It changed everything. “And now I can.”
She saw something in his eyes—just for a second. Like another door closing. Then he smiled and said, “Now you can.”
He pulled her down against him, his arms around her. “Don’t go yet, though,” he said, as if she were going to leave him right now and fly away. “Stay here with me.”
Chapter 12
Mayah drifted off to sleep, warm and safe in Tristan’s arms, snug in their little magic cave.
The dreams came, but not like before. She wandered the hallways of her mind, the same places she always went, but there were no ghosts.
Only silence, and a feeling that something was wrong. She was missing something.
She wanted Tristan. She could feel him next to her as she walked, his warmth and his presence, but when she looked he was never there.
Just emptiness.
No ghosts. No voices. That should be good, but somehow she knew it wasn’t.
She was almost relieved when she heard them again, faintly in the distance.
Here we are. We’re here. Save us.
She struggled toward them, but it was like walking through peanut butter. Here we are. Save us.
She fought her way to consciousness. Tristan wasn’t beside her.
He was on his knees, head cocked like a wolf. Listening.
The voices weren’t in her dreams, or in her mind. They were outside. And Tristan could hear them too.
Her dragon said,
Mayah scrambled to the opening, pausing on the way to touch Tristan, dressing them both in black leather.
Whatever was out there, she was sure as shit not going to face it naked.
Tristan said, “Stay in here. I’ll go.”
As if she would really do that—stay in here safe and let him face everything alone.
She emerged into the dark, wet clearing. The skies had cleared, and a half-moon hung just over the treetops, casting a wavering light.
The clearing was full of ghosts.
Crowding the edges in a big circle, reaching out. Calling.
Save us.
She stood up slowly, staring at them. They pressed forward—calling, beseeching.
Tristan pushed past her and rose to his feet. When he saw what was out there, he flinched, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. She could feel the pain that knifed through his brain.
He could see them. And they were setting off his own ghosts.
No, that wasn’t right. He’d heard them, even before she did. He was seeing her ghosts.
And they were hurting him.
“I can’t save you!” she shouted. “And he can’t either! Just leave us alone!”
They turned to long wisps of white fog with yellow eyes, like ghost animals. They circled round and round, faster and faster.
And then they were gone.
Tristan slid down the side of the spell shelter until he was sitting on the ground, elbows on his knees, a trickle of blood on his upper lip.
Mayah sat down next to him and conjured a t-shirt, handing it to him. He dabbed at the blood on his face.
“You saw that, right?” she said. “The ravening hordes, reaching out and calling for me to save them, like spirits in Hell begging for redemption?”
“I heard them calling,” he said. “Mostly I saw my own nightmares.” He tilted his head back against the hut’s wall, the t-shirt pressed to his nose to stop the bleeding.
Yikes. That had to suck. “It’s okay,” she said. “They’re not real. I think we just had an unfortunate mind-meld.”
Mayah felt like her heart stopped. They can’t be.
But they’re ghosts, Mayah said. They’re—you know. Dead.
Fuck.
“Mayah?” Tristan said. “Is everything okay?”
“Sorry. My dragon and I were just having a very bizarre, very disturbing conversation.”
“About?”
“About the ghosts being alive. Somewhere. And her wanting me to rescue them.”
Ah, hell. She amended her statement. “Correction. And I quote. ‘Both of you must rescue them.’”
Tristan said nothing for probably two full minutes. Then he said—surprisingly mildly considering the circumstances—“I see. Did she give any clues as to how we should go about that?”
Mayah put the question to her dragon. No answer was forthcoming.
“She’s got nothin’.”
“Awesome.”
“You don’t sound as upset as I thought you’d be.”
“Well, it did occur to me that Kira used to have visions of you and Emon calling out for help. She heard you.”
“Yeah, but we were alive.”
Tristan let that sit there until she followed it to the obvious conclusion. “You think there may be some other Al-Maddeiri dragons still alive somewhere? And I can hear them?”
“It’s a decent theory to start with. And if we could find them, and rescue them, then you wouldn’t be haunted anymore.” He paused. “And we could possibly annihilate one more group of motherfuckers who think keeping shifters in captivity is a good thing.”
There was that.
“Yeah but… how do we find them?”
He put his hand on her knee. “We’ll figure it out. The first thing we need to do is go through Markus’s library and find out if there’s any record—even a rumor—of any other Al-Maddeiri surviving the clan’s destruction.”
Markus Dobari had been Kira’s guardian, and had saved all he could out of the ruins of the Al-Maddeiri records and histories. Kira had given his whole library to Emon for safekeeping.
Mayah nodded. “Then I think we should talk to Kira,” she said. “She can walk through worlds, and she has that built-in interdimensional GPS thing going on. If we can figure out a way for her to come with me when I visit them in my dreams, maybe she can figure out where we are.”
“And then we hope it’s a place we can get to. And not some fort somewhere in the Dragonlands, guarded by an entire Draken clan.”
She nodded. “Because that would definitely suck.”
Chapter 13
Mayah Changed to dragon so she could fly Tristan back to the castle. He stared up at her dragon form, awe and delight in his eyes.
“You are the most beautiful dragon in all the worlds,” he said, putting his hand on the side of her neck as if he were touching a rare treasure.
The look in his eyes sent warmth flooding through her. She wanted him to love her dragon. Hell, she still couldn’t believe he loved her.
Tristan smiled. “I still know you’re the most beautiful.”
That seemed to please the dragon.
Worthy of what? Mayah asked.
Never mind, said Tristan and her dragon together.
Huh. She wondered what that was about.
She dipped her wing so Tristan could climb on her back, and then jumped into the air, beating her wings to get off the ground.
The storm had moved off and the stars we
re out. She circled beneath them, reveling in the feeling of the air under her wings. She could feel Tristan soaking in the night and the starlight, wanting to feel the way it felt for her.
He wanted to understand why she loved it.
Finally she turned and headed back toward the castle. About half a mile before they got there was a rock formation that held the portal they used to go back and forth to Earth. A bulky rectangular shape was moving away from the portal, along the path to the castle, and behind it she caught a glimpse of red light.
Dragon eyes.
Mayah felt something cold in the pit of her stomach. Intruders? More Gen-X?
Tristan, she said inside his mind. Do you see that?
Yeah.
She circled around and came in for a silent landing. As soon they got near the ground, she saw who it was. Zakerek.
He froze when her dark form dropped out of the night, his eyes still glowing dragon, though the rest of him was human.
“Emon!” he said. “Um. I didn’t expect to see Your Majesty—”
He looked closer. “You’re not Emon,” he said in a whisper. She felt him preparing to Change.
“Nope,” Mayah said, Changing to human. “But I can still kick your ass, Zakerek. What are you doing, smuggling shit into the castle in the dead of night?”
The bulky rectangular shape was covered in cloth wrappings. What the hell was that?
“Mayah!” Zakerek said. “I mean, Esteemed Princess.”
Suck-up. She waited.
“I didn’t know your dragon was… ahh…” Zakerek shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah. Anyway. I don’t suppose we could keep this whole thing…” he gestured, “between us?”
“Depends what it is,” Tristan said. “If you’re doing anything to hurt Mayah or Emon, or the people in this domain…” His voice grew low and threatening.
“Um.” Zakerek shifted his eyes to the side, towards the bulky object. “Can we clarify? Like, are we talking only physical harm? Or would running up Emon’s Earth credit card balance fall into that category? Hypothetically? I’m thinking that’s not really harm, per se, but maybe I could get your thoughts on that?”
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