I could feel the weakness that always came when it had been too long since I’d last seen Henry. We usually met twice a week, on Sunday evenings and on Thursday evenings. I hadn’t seen him since Arista’s wedding the week before. I could only assume he’d been busy, too busy for his own health. I had no idea what he did in the dragon world. Arista had only ever been interested in explanations about Malcolm, and the others in his group weren’t talkers either.

Maybe he was off on some princely foreign trip. Foreign relations. Were there foreigners in his world? Was his land that big? I wondered, but then decided that he probably didn’t do a lot; all of the bragging he’d done hinted at a man who loved to spend his wealth, not earn it. I played a note on the piano, an expression of my own inner turmoil, not really an attempt to create a new melody. Mom was at Eve’s, my cousin Arista’s mother’s house and wouldn’t be irritated by the noise.

I giggled as the note set something free inside of me, some long-held frustration, and I bashed at the keys ungracefully without any kind of rhythm. I felt as if each stabbing thrust of my fingers banged out a little more of my frustration, and I picked up the tempo, until I was wild, and screamed out just how frustrated I was! God, how I hated this all!

I couldn’t stand the man, yet, my body had to be near him. When he was near, I craved more, I wanted so much more. Even my brain would sometimes start to overlook just how much I couldn’t stand him and remind me how handsome he was. I just wanted it all to end because I was a wreck emotionally. I might be much better physically, but emotionally, this had all taken a toll that could be far more damaging than going without him had been.

By the time my frustration was spent and my throat was raw from the drawn-out screech, I was exhausted and leaned my arms against the top of the keys to rest my head. How could I make this all end? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair at all! I wanted my life back, the one that had a defined path, with goals that I’d only just started to meet. Not this travesty that saw me in a hate-to-love relationship with a magical, mythical being. What the hell, fate?

I felt a change in the air, a subtle breeze that wasn’t real but still tangible, as my body responded to Henry’s nearness. He was somewhere nearby then, I just didn’t know where. I’d come to recognize the sensation shortly after he first appeared in my life. My body healed every second he was near me and it deteriorated every second he was away. When we came close enough to each other the damage would start to reverse, and I could feel it within my body as a slight breeze blew away the ashes of the damage.

Speak of the devil…

How close was he? Had he heard the concerto of pain I’d just played? Would he know it was me that had trilled through the keys as I released the anxiety and rage my new life caused me? Or would he assume it was something I listened to? We hadn’t really talked about our lives or what we did with them. We’d barely spoken to each other at all.

I went outside to try to find him before he came into the house and unnerved me even more, and found him in his dragon form up in a tree outside of the piano room. I looked up at him, no more than two feet tall, and squinted.

“You’re not very scary looking.” The words came out before I could stop them.

He changed instantly into a huge dragon that took up around 60 feet of space at the bottom and much more in height. I looked up, and up, and then up some more. In a move that made my head spin, he shifted into his human form.

“Not as frightening as that music you were playing just now, but I suppose I have my moments.” Green eyes twinkled in the sunlight, his black hair just long enough to fall into his eyes as he tilted his head to the left. “Will you play something else for me?”

“Fuck off” came to mind immediately, but I bit my tongue. With a loud breath to calm my nerves, I looked at him speculatively. “I doubt I know anything from your land.”

“Probably not, I don’t think human hands can play our instruments.” He sat down cross-legged against the tree and looked up at me with a cheeky grin, one that said he was about to rile me up and loved every moment of it. “Your instruments are inferior, but you make the best with what you have, I suppose.”

I turned and walked away. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of taking his bait. I wanted to tell him to go home and listen to his superior music but didn’t. I needed him to stay for at least a few more minutes to finish the process that healed us both. Then he could fly off back to his own world.

“Willow?” He was right behind me and I had been so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed.

“What?” I growled the words at him without a glance back.

“Will you play something else for me?” He repeated his earlier question, and I stopped. My left eyebrow quirked as I turned to look at him again.

“Why?”

He chewed at his lip for a minute and squinted in the direction of the sun. Was it that hard to come up with a reason?

“I liked what you played earlier, but it was angry, full of rage. I’d like to hear you play something calmer. You’re very good, you know?” That strong jaw of his was well-defined as he leaned his head to the right, just enough for me to punch him.

Instead, I took another deep breath and walked back into the house. He followed me into the room, bare except for the piano, my stool, and a plain pine rocking chair Mom had put into the room to sit on when she’d come to listen to me play. Henry settled his long frame into the rocker without another word.

I went to the piano and began to play a piece by Beethoven, one that always calmed me but also moved me, a conundrum of its own. I couldn’t watch Henry as I played, not without a turn of my head, so I didn’t look. I had no idea what to expect when the last note filled the room. I turned around, too curious not to, and my mouth fell open.

He looked... astounded.

That was the only word for it. I waited, unsure why it mattered but for some reason, I needed to know that Henry liked how I played.

“What was that?” He looked directly at me, his eyes intense and filled with something I couldn’t define.

“That was Beethoven. He was a composer during the late 18^th century and early 19^th century. He started to lose his hearing when he was in his 30s and was deaf by the time he died.” I had to pause as Henry made a noise of disbelief. “I know, hard to believe isn’t it? In fact, the piece I just played, the Moonlight Sonata, was composed with notes in the low tones, which were the only sounds he could hear by that point.”

“Are you quite sure?” Henry didn’t look like he believed me.

“Oh yes, he was quite deaf by the end. Oddly enough, Moonlight Sonata seems to be his most well-known piece of work in the world today. At least by the younger generations in America.” I smiled, knowing there was more than one movie to blame for that.

“It was a beautiful piece of music. I can understand why it is still so loved, even after all of this time.” He paused as if to think before he spoke again. “It’s very... moving.”

“It is.” The notes replayed in my mind, the dour sounds haunted me, grief and doom mixed into a sound that was still somehow calming. How do you describe that?

I looked at Henry and realized why I’d played the piece. He reminded me of that song, the way he made me feel reminded me of the same emotions that piece of music stirred inside of me. It was like I was two different people, schizophrenic or my own doppelganger. All I know is at the same time he made me feel like I was in love, he also filled me with hate and irritation. It was about to break me.

“You know you don’t really hate me, don’t you? That’s your dragon slayer twisting your mind.” Henry spoke as if he could read my thoughts.

I cut my eyes to him, and for the first time, I really saw the man, not the enemy dragon, not my mate, but a person. He’d called me out with his words and made it all real. He’d brought my own inner turmoil out into the open and I felt as if he’d laid my soul bare with this new approach.

“I don’t know what it is, but I do know I feel like I’m going crazy.” It was the first real thing I’d admitted to him. I couldn’t look at him, it was too much, too overwhelming to let him see me. In that moment, everything changed for me.

I heard him gasp and looked back up at him. What had he seen, what had I given away? I saw wonder on his face. “You are beautiful, Willow.”

“Physical beauty fades,” I warned him, but the words also served to fend off the compliment.

“I didn’t mean your appearance. I meant who you are, Willow. The woman who made a box of wood and strings sing beautiful songs, the woman who cares about her family, the one who wants to take care of all of them, but never complains, even when it’s too much.” He was perched on the edge of the rocker, and his sturdy black leather boots drew my attention.

Why were those things so sexy? My eyes were drawn up the rest of him, covered in his black uniform, the cargo pants tight on his thighs and in other, more delicate places. That was just cruel, I thought to myself, while my eyes continued to move upwards. Crushing such sensitive parts in tight cotton should be against the law. My eyes didn’t stop their travels and went up over a taut stomach that I knew would be as hard as a rock, over chest muscles filling the uniform out with round strength, and up to his shoulders.

He didn’t move throughout my visual examination, he just stayed still and let me have my fill of him. I studied the length of his neck, long enough to fit my face into for kisses, for me to inhale the scent of him. I breathed deeply through my nose and wasn’t surprised to find my head filled with his smell. I knew his scent by now.

I felt something stir in my chest as I found his dark red lips, full and dry. They needed kisses to moisten them and make them smooth. My fingers itched to touch them, to feel their softness. I had to suck in a deep breath into my own now dry mouth before I could move away from those lips. They drew me to him, and I didn’t quite realize it, but I was up and in front of him before I knew it. My fingers traced down the hard line of his jaw while my eyes looked up to those green eyes.

Sometimes the color of grass, sometimes a more golden color, his eyes changed with his emotions. They were a dark green now, the color of the forest at twilight, and I knew he felt the same as me. Like there was no use in a fight I wouldn’t win anyway. My fingers ran down the smooth line of his jaw and I felt my heart as it raced in my chest. I wanted... him. I wanted all of him, I wanted him to consume me in kisses that stole my ability to breathe, I wanted him pressed so far into me there was no us, only one. His fingers came up to slide down my cheek and the moment broke for me.

I sucked in the air I’d forgotten to breathe and pulled away. I needed to escape, I needed room to breathe, I need to run.

“You don’t need to run, Willow. Come with me.” He took my hand and pulled me back out of the front door and to the yard. “Just climb between my shoulders and hang on. I’ll make you feel better.”

I couldn’t say no, there was some need within me that I could not understand, I couldn’t even give it a name other than need. It crushed my chest, it gnawed at my brain, and I just needed. Fuck, it almost hurt I needed it so much! Henry shifted then, a blink and a swish of air, and then he was a dragon. Small enough to climb up on at first, he swiftly grew, and my perch between his shoulders became almost a cocoon. He climbed into the sky with a flap of leathery wings and soon we were high above the trees.

The wind blew through my long hair, pushing it from my face and around my neck if I sat up. The wind streaking over me seemed to soothe the hate within me, so I sat up and let it tear it all out of me. I started to laugh as he flew us through the sky, a laugh that turned into a scream at one point, but the wind screamed louder. I let it all out into the sky as we flew. I screamed and laughed until there was nothing left inside of me to scream or laugh about and fell onto his back, exhausted.

I gripped onto thick skin covered in plates of scales so wide one was enough for my bottom. Henry’s wings tore through the air, and he kept going, he flew until I finally relaxed, and my body finally felt at peace. I didn’t even know I’d fallen asleep cradled between his shoulders until he landed gently, and a shiver passed through his body. I sat up, saw that it was dark, and wondered what would happen next. I felt as if anything was possible now.