CHAPTER TWELVE
Kate had been unable to fall asleep, after all. She'd risen to use the bathroom. She was just climbing back into bed when she heard a loud racket in the hallway outside. Her door burst open with the crack and splinter of wood and a huge, unimaginably bizarre creature thundered into her room.
Even though she cried out in surprise, she knew instantly who he was. The Zrakon. He looked exactly like the creature in her dream.
He stepped closer. "You must come," he said, the words coming out in a strange sibilant tone that sounded anything but human.
He could talk? Somehow she knew that, too. Not only could he talk, but he could also reach her mind. She wasn't even sure whether his voice was being conveyed through the air or inside her head.
"Come where?" She tried to keep her own voice firm and steady.
"I am the Zrakon. I am your mate."
He sounded a bit like Ross, who had also declared himself to be her mate. What was going on? Maybe she was still dreaming? "I am human," she countered. "I can't be your mate. Aren't you supposed to be in the water?"
To her, it seemed like a reasonable question, but the creature roared his disapproval. Kate swallowed, trying to keep it together. This had to be another dream, right?
"He is trying to take you from me."
"Who is?"
"He is!" The words came out in a hiss.
"You mean the laird? Ross?"
"Aye, him. He made you forget. He doesn't want you to know that you are already mine." The creature shimmered the way Ross had done earlier in the night when the aura around him had spread and enveloped him like a flame. "Look at me. Look closely. Look."
His enormous bulk compressed before her eyes. His long neck shortened and his legs straightened and grew slender. Heat poured off him and he began to glow. Kate shrank back against the headboard of the bed, unsure what she was witnessing. She heard groans and cracking sounds. His long tail shrank away to nothing as he shifted his physical form. His scales became flesh. He turned into a man.
And the man he turned into was Ross.
Kate yelped. What the fuck? And yet, somehow she knew it. Somewhere deep inside the transformation made sense. That must have been what had happened in the maze. That heat, that crackling sound. Ross had started to change. But that meant—God, she couldn't fathom what it meant.
Staring wildly at him, she sprang from the bed and made a mad dash for the bathroom door. Maybe she could lock herself in there? But the creature—the human creature—gusted like fire across the room and was there before her, his back against the door. He looked like Ross, but he moved like the magical thing he was.
He was hindering her escape, so she attacked him with fists flying. She seized a lamp from the top of the bureau and cracked it against his head. Totally stupid thing to do. The lamp smashed, but his head took no damage that she could see. She knew it was crazy to fight him, but she felt trapped and confused and she couldn't help herself. She completely lost it. She whirled and kicked and screamed as she did battle. But she couldn't seem to touch him. He had that glowing, sparkling aura all around him now, like a shield, and every time she encountered it, she felt heat and static and saw jewel-like sparks. She could not touch him as Ross. The creature was preventing it.
"Kate, stop. Calm the fuck down. Please."
"Get away from me!"
He opened the golden tunnel into her mind. She felt it happening; she threw up her mental walls. He glided past them even more easily than he had the first time.
Catriona. Kate. It’s me. It's Ross. The Zrakon is bound to the Malloch heir when his father dies. It has happened that way for centuries. But it's still me.
She tried to shove him out, but he hung on.
I need you. The Hunger is indescribable, and it's getting worse. You must submit.
He not only looked like Ross, he sounded like him. People had an individual voice, and whether it was transmitted in sound or in thought, it sounded the same. "Are you truly Ross?"
Aye, truly I am.
"Why is this happening? Why can’t you touch me?"
I've waited too long, and now I can only touch you in Zrakon form. Last night, in the maze, that was incredible, but it has pushed him over the edge.
"I'm not sure I understand. You're not human? What are you?"
I'm a shape shifter. You know, like a werewolf? I'm the Zrakon and he is me. That is why you can touch both my mind and his. We're the same.
Kate struggled to make sense of this. Like a werewolf? Were they real, too? "So, you and the Zrakon are one being?"
Not exactly, but close enough. Kate. Listen to me. You don't have to be afraid of my Zrakon side. You and he are already friends. I gave you a command on Midsummer's Eve. I told you to forget everything that happened that night. It was for the best, but there's no longer any point in it.
"What are you talking about?"
Catriona. Remember. Remember it all now.
Kate felt something shift inside her head, and a host of images rolled before her like a film. No, it was far more intense than a film because everything that she saw had happened to her. Time sped up as she relived the events of Midsummer's Eve: on the beach freeing Effie, her encounter with the Zrakon, the strange yet magical swim through the cold Scottish sea, sheltered against the beast's body, wrapped up in his warm tentacles. The mental communication. The intimacy. The sensuality. The sparkling cavern where he had taken her. It must have been that cavern—the place of legend that Ross had declared unsafe and off limits.
The Zrakon had taken her to his lair, and then he had made her forget.
Okay, not much freaked her out, but this did. She retreated to the bed and sat down. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. She had swum with the Zrakon. She had breathed the air from his lungs. His tentacles had been wrapped around her. They had kept her warm in the cold sea.
It had been an amazing experience, but it had been stolen from her.
Something hot and wild uncoiled inside her. Ross had lied to her. Worse, he had controlled her mind.
"You bastard. You stole a whole night of my life. How could you do that? How dare you invade me that way? Where do you get the power to erase part of my experience? Damn you!"
"Kate, I was trying to protect you."
"Protect me? How? By deceiving me? By pretending to be something you're not? Get out of my room. Take your sea dragon and go straight to hell."
He had the grace to look ashamed of himself. But what he said aloud was, 'I can't let you go. I'm sorry. It's too late for that now."
"You lied to me!'
"I was just trying to ease you in it. I mean, I wanted to break it to you slowly."
"Break what to me?"
"You know—the whole mating with the sea dragon thing."
"You can't seriously expect me to have sex with a mythical beast."
"Couldn't you close your eyes and try? It’s me on the inside, and that big ugly beast has sensitive feelings. If you would just relax I’m sure I—we—could make it nice for you."
She remembered the erotic dreams. The tentacles. Surely he hadn't...ohmygod, what if they hadn't been dreams? "What else did you make me forget? When you had me down there in your cave, did you do anything to me? Anything I don't remember?"
"No. Kate, no, I promise you."
"I've been having these crazy dreams."
"Even if I were the sort of creep who forces women—and I assure you, I'm not—there are rules to this game, and consent is required. The Zrakon is not allowed to love you without your permission."
"To love me?" She laughed a little wildly. "It's not even physically possible. That Zrakon is too big—and there are barbs on his dick. Have you looked at yourself when you're in that form? That’s something that no human woman could possibly endure."
"There’s a solution to that."
"Really. And what would that be?"
"Maybe the spiny things, uh, retract or something. I don’t know. Damn. I have medical journals of all types in my office, but not a single scholarly paper on the sex life of sea dragons."
Her eyes blinked rapidly. "It is you, isn't it? This isn't another freaking dream."
It's no dream. You can hear me when I speak to you telepathically.
"Yes, I can hear you. How do you do that, anyway?" She had felt him form the golden tunnel that linked his mind to hers. "You can read my mind. That would be remarkable enough without the shape shifting. Can you do it with everyone?"
"No." He replied in his normal, audible voice. "The only person I've ever been able to do it with is my twin, and even that is sporadic. I was shocked when you connected with me in the surf on Midsummer Night's Eve."
"I've only done it with animals. Never with a human before. Of course, I thought you were an animal. Or rather, a mythical beast." She shook her head. "I still don't believe this, Ross."
"I can't just enter your mind at will. You have to allow it. And I can't read random thoughts, in case you were wondering. You have to direct them toward me, like a conversation. It takes practice."
"So my secret thoughts and emotions are still private? That's good to know! I'm glad there's something that's still my own."
It might not seem so now, but everything you have is still your own. You're still you, Catriona. We just have this odd connection.
"But it's more than that. You and your Zrakon want to use me for some mysterious purpose that has nothing to do with me. So don’t attempt to beguile me. And get the fuck out of my head."
In a sudden concentration of pure, raw power, she flung him out.
He must not have liked that, because there was another flash, another crack, and his body bent over and bulked up again. It happened fast. The human Ross melted away and exploded into the giant form of the Zrakon.
His lust must have exploded, too, because he came at her with that huge scary cock thrusting forward as if its only purpose in life were to slake its lust in her flesh. She shrank away from him, sick about her own helplessness in the face of male rage and physical supremacy. The Zrakon was bigger than ever. He filled and dominated the bedchamber. He dwarfed the sturdy old bedstead where she was cowering.
What had happened to the gentlemanly monster who had kept her warm with his body in the freezing Scottish sea? This Zrakon wanted to tear her apart.
Woman. The Zrakon forged the mental link again; it seemed she couldn't keep him out when his energy and determination were so strong. You must surrender. That is the ritual. The females of this island have served the Zrakon since the world began.
This is the Way: Go to the cavern where the sacrificial stone is. You and the human will go together. He will bind you to the rock for the sacrifice. He must give you to me. And you must be willing, you must consent. Do you understand?
"I don't consent, dammit!"
If you do not make the offering willingly, I will hunt you down and keep you with me until you agree. There is no way to avoid your destiny. It was written long before you were born. You have until the full moon to prepare yourself.
He whirled, smashed through the doorframe as if it were made of straw, and stalked out of her room.
Kate stared at the wreckage around her—the cracked door, the broken lamp, the sea water soaking into the oriental rug—and, for the first time in years, she burst out in sobs. After a couple of minutes, though, the absurdity of it all struck her, and, with tears still pouring down her cheeks, she began to laugh.
"Be careful when you return to Mallochbirn," Gramma Molly had said to her. "'Tis a lovely, mad, unruly place that will surely set your brain awhirl."