by Kayla Wolf
What was that about, exactly? Was there something going on between Caleb and Quinn? She didn’t seem to reciprocate, he’d observed, but then again, he was no expert in body language. Maybe they were mates. Was it possible that he was too late? It had been hard to sit at breakfast and make pleasant conversation when his mind was ticking away so quickly. The Oracle had told him that there would be some kind of a rival there, an enemy to his cause—could that be Caleb? Could he be scheming to win Quinn’s heart?
Because it had to be Quinn, didn’t it? Looking into her blue-gray eyes had been like being struck by lightning. So much confusion and uncertainty had just fallen away—and even though he hadn’t even known her name, he knew without even thinking about it that she was the reason he was there. He needed to protect her, to care for her, to keep her safe… It was a shame she viewed him with such distrust, such suspicion brooding on that beautiful face. But could he really blame her? In the space of two days, two complete strangers had turned up on her family farm, each with a preposterous story as to what had brought them there. David didn’t buy Caleb’s story about being separated from his family for a minute. The coyote was up to something. That was obvious.
But what did he want here? Did he want to take Quinn’s farm away from her? He was certainly curious about the garden—that much was obvious from the intent way he’d stared at every plant they’d passed, from the questions he kept asking about the lake at the center of the garden. True, it was strange, such a lush little oasis growing in the midst of a desert—but Charles and Quinn had been tending the land for more than a century, hadn’t they? It made sense that a bit of love could transform a piece of land from a patch of desert to a thriving farm like this. At least, he expected it did. He hadn’t done much reading about botany and biology—his interests had always been heavenwards. He knew a lot about rain cycles in the desert, of course—but not much about what happened to the ground as a result. Probably not this kind of sustained growth, though.
So it could be the farm that Caleb wanted. Or maybe—and something unfamiliar burned in David’s chest at this thought—he wanted Quinn. Maybe he’d seen her, tending the garden, walking outside the garden walls, and decided that he wanted her for his own. Who could blame him? She was beautiful, elegant, powerful—talking to her for a few minutes had revealed her strength, her wit, something burning in her. She was unhappy, he suspected. He had no idea why, but there was something wrong, deep down. God, he wanted to help. He wanted to know everything about her—wanted to just lay with her under the stars and listen to her talk and talk, tell him her whole life story, everything that had ever happened, everything she’d ever thought or felt or wondered…
He shook himself, a little embarrassed by that little fantasy taking hold. Why on earth would she want to talk to him about anything? He was some strange dragon who’d dropped out of the sky and made her life more complicated than it needed to be. The least he could do was try, at least a little, to make himself useful. So as Charles and Caleb headed for the orchard to the south, and Quinn rose to her feet, David followed.
”Quinn. Can I do anything?”
”Not really. I’ll show you your room, though, seeing as my father’s already forgotten,” she added, shooting a dark look at Charles’s retreating back. There was something so strangely familiar about that look.
”My dad’s hard to live with sometimes,” he offered, not even sure why he was speaking until it was already too late. Quinn’s eyes flicked back towards him, and he cleared his throat. “I mean, Charles seems a lot… nicer than my dad. My dad’s…” How to summarize William’s mercurial moods in a way that didn’t make him sound like a monster? “Difficult. He’s got a certain way he wants things to get done, and anyone who goes against that is the enemy. Even if it’s his children.”
Quinn was looking at him intently. “My father’s not as nice as you’d think. Nice is fine, but it turns you into a pushover. Sometimes you need to know when to stand up.”
”Maybe we should introduce them,” David said, grinning a little. “Sounds like they’d be good for each other.”
”Yeah.” She was still looking at him, those sharp blue eyes seeming to size him up. “Hey, I’ve got half the garden left to water. Want to help?”
”I was going to offer,” he said, feeling a wave of relief crashing over him like water. She wanted him around! Even if it was just to help with farm chores… he’d take it. At this point, he’d take anything. Even open hostility would do if it meant spending more time with her. Suppressing the urge to grin like a maniac, he followed her down the hall of the house towards the room he’d been offered.
“This is a beautiful house, by the way,” he added as they walked, glancing up at the ceiling. “Was it already here when you moved, or—”
”Nothing was here when we moved,” Quinn said, opening the door to his room. “Well, not nothing. There was desert, and cactuses, a bit of scrub… probably a bunch of native animals that got shifted away by what we did to it… anyway, here’s your room. There’s bedding in the linen closet, take your pick, I don’t know how many blankets you like but fair warning, it gets pretty cold at night.”
David grinned. “I’m from Colorado, I think I’ll be okay.”
”So am I,” Quinn said, raising an eyebrow. “But even so… take an extra quilt.”
He dropped his satchel on the bed, but Quinn was already heading off down the hallway, clearly intent on getting to her chores. He followed along, lengthening his strides to match hers. It was midmorning now, and as they stepped out onto the porch, he could feel how much stronger the sun had gotten. Quinn had scooped a broad-brimmed sunhat from the kitchen table on her way through and was pulling it snugly down around her ears.
”Best to protect yourself from the sun,” she said, glancing up at him. Though he still had a few inches on her, she was taller than most women he’d known—taller than both of his sisters, taller than Amara—and there was something pleasantly intimate about how close she was to him when she spoke. “Sunburn’s no joke. Dad’s got a bunch of hats, I’d grab one of those.”
”I’ll be fine,” he said, too entranced by her eyes to pay much attention to what she was saying. Then she shrugged, and turned away, heading down the path they’d taken from the lake.
”Suit yourself.”
He followed along behind her, admiring every inch of her as they walked. “So how long did all this take to grow?”
”Not long,” she replied, not looking around at him. Her strides were long, and she moved with purpose. “A year or so before it was properly sustainable and we could stop hunting wild.”
David nodded. Some dragons still preferred hunting in their dragon shapes—it was quite possible to live a happy life without ever cooking or eating in the human shape. Dragon bodies were much more capable of digesting raw meat and the like… though they did take a great deal more food to satisfy their hunger. The herds of deer that roamed near the valley had sustained the lives of the dragons there for thousands of years. But since Lisa, their human queen, had moved in, there had been an interesting shift towards eating in human forms. Human food was interesting—long derided for being too fiddly and complicated to prepare, a number of dragons had nevertheless developed quite a fondness for cooking. Now, group meals were common, and dragons who preferred hunting to cooking were becoming the minority.
Something his father had railed against, of course, he thought with a familiar pang of vexation. William was a hard man to live with. But here, in this beautiful garden, with perhaps the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, somehow David didn’t want to think about his father. He just wanted to hear Quinn tell him more about her life out here.
”This lake’s amazing,” he said sincerely as they reached it. Caleb and Quinn had brought buckets out that morning—he realized his appearance had interrupted the very chore he was now assisting with. Quinn scooped water into one of the buckets, jerking her head at the other one to indicate that he should do
the same, and he picked it up.
”It is. Fresh water. Keeps everything growing well. Better than fertilizer, this water.” They carried the buckets back through the trees, taking careful steps to avoid sloshing water over the sides. “I keep telling Dad we should install a real irrigation system,” she told him, “but he’s a traditionalist. Lugging water’s a big part of the job here. Especially with how hot the sun gets.”
”Must be exhausting,” David said, looking at her slender arms which were so well-muscled. Don’t stare, he instructed himself sharply. But her gaze was fixed on the path ahead.
“I see what he means,” she said, surprising him. “It’s good to be reminded of what’s at the heart of everything. Without this water… well, everything falls apart. It’s like the blood in the veins of the place.”
”I feel like that about the sky.”
Her eyes flicked towards him, surprised. “How’s that?”
”Well—the sky, the sun, the rainclouds—everything we have comes from up there originally, right? Without rain, there’s no life. Without sunlight, there’s no life. It’s all… up there.” He tried to gesture with the hand holding the bucket and exclaimed in alarm as he nearly spilled the water. And to his surprise, Quinn giggled—a sound that filled his whole chest with light.
”Careful with the water. But I see what you mean. I never think of the sun as a friend, I guess,” she said. “But I guess without it, we’d be in trouble.”
”We take a lot for granted,” David said softly. “It’s amazing, how fragile we really are. How easily our whole existence could be demolished.” He shook himself. “Wow, that’s dark. Sorry. I get on these trains of thought—”
”No,” Quinn said unexpectedly, her eyes still on his face. “Don’t apologize for thinking about things like that.” Her eyes flicked back towards the path. “We’re here.”
David blinked, disoriented. Ahead of them loomed dozens of fruit trees, all arranged in very neat rows. There was netting on some of them, careful markings applied to the trunks that David was sure had very complicated meanings—and there, perched high in the branches of one of the trees, was Charles, who was scrutinizing an orange. David frowned as he saw Caleb standing at the foot of the tree. He’d been hoping to avoid the coyote for as long as possible.
”She’s put you to work already, I see,” Charles called down happily. Like Quinn, he was wearing a broad-brimmed hat. The effect was rather comical, but the old dragon clearly didn’t mind. He clambered down the tree with surprising dexterity, coming to take the bucket from David’s willing hands. “Good of you.”
”Well, it’s the least I could do, given the hospitality you’ve offered—”
”We’re delighted to have you,” Charles said, but his eyes had already moved to his daughter. “Quinn, come and see this discoloration on the bark of this one, I’m concerned it’s going to spread—”
”We’ve still got to water half the orchard, Dad—”
”Let the boys sort it. Caleb, David, are you willing to fetch and carry a few more buckets?”
And so it was that David found himself walking back towards the lake with the coyote at his side. This was a much less pleasant walk than the one he’d taken with Quinn, that was for sure. The tension in the air was palpable, with Caleb taking short, jagged steps as though they were racing to the water. Once they were out of earshot of the farm, David found himself glancing sideways at Caleb, wondering if the coyote would take this opportunity to give him a clue about what his problem was with him. Or maybe even pick a fight. Part of him almost hoped he would. A fist fight would almost be preferable to all this staring and glowering from the coyote… and a part of himself had been wanting to punch this guy in the nose since they’d met. Something about the way he looked at Quinn.
”I haven’t met any coyotes before,” David said, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence that was palpable in the air between them. “Do you live mostly down here, or—”
”Stay out of my way, dragon,” Caleb said, his voice flat and deadly, cutting right through the middle of David’s attempt at conversation. “You and I both know that you don’t belong down here. So what are you doing here? Really?”
”I was sent by an Oracle—”
”I don’t buy that for a minute,” Caleb snarled. David stared at him.
”And I don’t buy that you were lost and just happened to stumble upon this place,” he said levelly, “so why don’t we both just settle down for a moment, hm?”
”I have infinitely more of a right to be here than you, dragon,” the coyote growled, and David could see his yellow eyes glowing. That happened to wolves, he knew, when they were about to shift forms—their silver eyes would light up, the magic that transformed their bodies beginning to stir. But Caleb didn’t transform. Instead, he strode ahead, angry movements carrying him to the shore of the lake, which they’d reached without David even noticing.
”I don’t know what your problem is,” David said, stooping to fill the bucket with water as he kept his eyes on Caleb. “I don’t know whether you’re here to try to steal something, or because you think Quinn’s your mate, or—”
Caleb scoffed. “She’d do better with me than with you. And don’t try to play innocent. I saw the way you looked at her when you saw her, I know you want her. But you’ll fail. I know your type, dragon. You’re all thoughts and words and ideas, no action. No real strength to you. Just a lot of postulation. Yes, I’m here for her, and for this place. You should try being brave enough to try to get what you want, dragon.” His yellow eyes gleamed as he turned back towards the path. “And if you get in my way, I won’t hesitate to get rid of you.”
David watched him storm away with the bucket of water sloshing in his grip, taken aback by the force of his fury. There was so much rage in Caleb—this was clearly of crucial importance to him. It could have been his age making him impetuous—David was grateful that his own days as an Angry Young Man were well behind him. He’d had his fair share of fights and frustrations, but maturity was a much more comfortable place to be. But why was Caleb so angry? Why was it so important that he claim ownership of this odd little farm in the middle of the desert? And what did he have against dragons? The way he’d snapped the epithet, as though it was a curse word… had a dragon wronged him at some point in the past, or something? David had to admit, he was fiercely curious, almost more than he was taken aback or aggravated by the coyote’s threats on his life. But what could he do? They were clearly not in a position to have a friendly chat about their histories.
Maybe Quinn knew a little more about the coyote than he did? He supposed he could ask her. It made a cold band of anxiety clench tight around his heart, to know that Caleb was fully intending to attempt to woo Quinn. David knew they’d only just met, and that he had no right to make any kind of claim on her… but still, there was just something about her that made him feel that she was for him… and the idea of the coyote taking her away from him? David wasn’t a man who got angry easily—but he could feel the tell-tale stirrings of fury in his chest when he thought about Caleb trying to get in his way, trying to take Quinn away from him…
Don’t be stupid, he scolded himself. She wasn’t a possession, or an object—something to be claimed or fought over. She was her own person, with her own ideas about who she did or didn’t want to be with. And who was to say she was even remotely interested in either of them? She clearly had her own share of problems to be getting on with. David braced himself and lifted the bucket of water, shaking his head a little to try to clear it. There was no sense getting carried away with what Caleb had said. No sense trying to rush what he was doing. He was here, that was half the battle. He’d identified the rival the Oracle had told him about, that was for sure. All that remained was to find out what the danger was that was threatening Quinn.
But as David watched Caleb stalk away, he had a worrying sense that he already knew what that was, too.
Chapter 8 – Quinn
&nb
sp; “You know,” Charles said thoughtfully as he removed a few leaves from the tree he’d been fussing over for weeks, “humans have a lot of jokes about farmers’ daughters.”
Quinn looked up at him. “What?”
“It’s a classic joke format. There’s a traveler, he finds a need to stay at a farm for the night, the farmer has a beautiful daughter, the traveler finds her interesting—”
Quinn narrowed her eyes. “What are you saying?”
”It’s just interesting, that’s all. Two handsome, eligible young men just happened to turn up, needing a place to stay, both of them clearly much more interested in you than me…”
”Dad, what are you trying to say?” Quinn said impatiently, feeling a tell-tale rise of color coming to her cheeks as her father steadfastly focused on the tree instead of looking down at her. There was a bizarre burst of embarrassment in her chest, and she found herself hoping fiercely that David and Caleb were both well out of earshot.
”Just that you’re a beautiful young woman—”
”—I’m over a century old, but thanks—“
”—and I’m not unaware of the way men tend to look at women, that’s all.” He looked down at her, his gray-blue eyes oddly serious. “Be careful, that’s all I want to say, Quinn.”