Chapter Thirteen
Silas steered the car back into the right lane, still quiet, so Cassandra tapped on his leg and tried again.
“Silas — Does. Drax. Own. Koa. Point?”
“Sort of. Kind of. Not really…” He stopped and started, discarding his own words.
“Sort of?”
He tapped on the gearshift, then slowly, cautiously turned his palm up to clasp hers.
“My uncle Filimore — the last of the great dragons — was the owner of the estate.”
He exhaled long and hard with a There, I said it kind of relief.
“The uncle poisoned by Drax owned the estate?”
Silas nodded. “Filimore hired me as caretaker. He also made me promise never to tell anyone.”
“Why?”
He made a face and shrugged. “Dragons. What can I say? The older generation lives under an archaic code of conduct.”
She nearly laughed and pointed out Silas’s penchant for coffee brewed properly. For dressing with style. For keeping a library of leather-bound books…
“Everything is a secret,” he went on with a hint of bitterness. “Everything is hidden.”
“Every problem is solved alone,” she added.
“I suppose so.” Then he cast a sideways glance at her. “Am I that bad?”
She laughed. “Yes. But hell, we all have our weak points.”
“Weak points?” he grunted, clearly displeased.
She poked his leg. “Sometimes strength can be a weakness, you know.” Then she flapped her hands, going back to where he’d left off. “Filimore made you promise not to reveal that he owned the estate. But now that he’s gone…”
Silas made a face, as if every vow he made was for life. “The real issue is his will.”
Her heart thumped as much out of anticipation as appreciation that Silas was finally opening up to her. Trusting her the way she’d come to trust him.
“The will leaves the estate — and most of Filimore’s holdings — to two principal heirs.”
Cassandra sat perfectly still.
“Me.” Silas pointed at himself. Then he scowled and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “And Drax.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit.”
Silas nodded. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“Why would your uncle leave anything to Drax? Didn’t he know how corrupt Drax is?”
Silas shrugged. “Who’s to say I’m not the corrupt one? Sometimes, I can’t tell any more.”
She grabbed his hand and drummed it on the gearshift, emphasizing her words. “I say. Drax reeks of evil. You don’t have to be a dragon to know that. But you? You are honorable. Principled. Loyal.”
He stared at her.
“Okay, and stubborn too.”
He chuckled, finally giving in. “I suppose everyone has their weak points.”
“I could go on, you know. You’re way too uptight. Too formal. Too shuttered off. What you need is a couple of good, long walks on the beach. Barefoot.”
He attempted a stern look. “Finished?”
She grinned. “Only just starting. But maybe I’ll lay off for tonight. And by the way, you have a few strong points. Maybe I’ll tell you about them sometime.”
He broke into a smile then brought her hand to his cheek. Briefly, he closed his eyes and pressed her hand close. The emotionally challenged dragon’s version of a hug, she supposed.
A second later, he turned his eyes back to the road. And a second after that, he kissed the back of her hand.
She hid a happy sigh. As far as intimacy went, that gesture might not be much — but the fact that it came from a tough, alpha type made it special. Really special, making her tingle right down to her toes. And damn, that was just a kiss to the back of her hand — possibly the least intimate spot ever. What would it be like to really get it on with this man?
Mind-blowingly good, she decided. If only she weren’t hurtling down the highway, discussing life-and-death issues with him.
“Thank you,” Silas murmured, looking at the road, keeping hold of her hand.
She ran her fingers over his and gazed out over the driver’s side of the car. Silas took up the foreground view — furrowed brow and all. They were almost across the central valley, and the Pacific was opening up before them. All that space, all that sky. The glittering, moonlit sea went on and on to infinity. Impassive. Unstoppable. A lot like destiny.
Destiny. Where did hers lie?
She mulled the question over for the next ten minutes, then noticed the signs. They would be coming up on Lahaina soon, which meant Koa Point wasn’t too far away. The second they got there, Silas would probably close up again.
A light turned red, and Silas coasted to a stop, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Then he caught himself and put his hand on her thigh.
“Cassandra,” he murmured, tilting his head toward hers.
She leaned in until their foreheads touched and shut her eyes, closing the world away for a heartbeat or two. She couldn’t see it, but she swore Silas’s chest rose and fell with a sigh.
She sighed too. If this was what destiny felt like, she’d embrace it — the good and the bad.
Silas tilted his chin upward, placed the world’s gentlest kiss on her forehead, and mumbled sadly, “Light’s green.”
She straightened slowly, reluctantly, bolstered by the fact that Silas kept her hand firmly in his when he drove on.
She took a deep breath. So much to make sense of, so little time. And if she was serious about helping Silas, she needed to understand his problems, not just think about herself.
“So your uncle left the estate to both of you? What about Kai? Wouldn’t he be mad?”
Silas laughed. “A few years ago, he might have been. But now, he’s got everything he wants.”
Silas didn’t have to elaborate for Cassandra to understand. Kai had Tessa. A nice home. A bright future. Funny, how much that suddenly appealed.
“I think Kai is glad to stay out of it,” Silas explained. “And anyway, he understands dragon traditions. Everything goes to the oldest in each family line.”
She pulled on her lip. “Fine, but I still don’t get it. Did your uncle expect you and Drax to kiss and make up?”
Silas snorted. “More like, May the best man win. Like I said, old dragon ways…”
She thought that over. “Do old dragon ways mean you can’t enlist help?”
“There’s an honor code—”
Now it was her turn to snort. “And you expect Drax to respect that? I can just see him calling in his buddies — if he has any. Plus, Moira is sure to sneak in a few low blows from the side. She seems to specialize in that.”
Silas gave a resigned sigh and — true to form — shied away from one topic by focusing on another. “Drax doesn’t have buddies. He does have an army, though.”
Cassandra froze. “You mean an army army?”
Silas tilted his head from side to side. “A dragon army. I guess it’s more like a platoon by human standards. But that’s still a hell of a lot of firepower.”
She jabbed his side. “Pun intended?”
He managed a weak smile. “I wish. But no. I mean literally.”
She shoved her feet flat on the floor so her knees couldn’t shake. “Okay, Drax has an army. So do you. There’s Kai and Tessa, for starters. Then you’ve got — what? Wolves. Bears. Tigers…”
He shook his head immediately. “I don’t want to involve them. Can’t you see?”
She tilted her head at him. All she saw was an overly proud man trying to take on the world alone.
“The guys have all served their country. They’ve fought enough,” he said in a hush.
So did you, she wanted to say, but he rushed on.
“They’ve made a new start in life. A good life with women they love. They’re starting families… Families that deserve stability and time for each other.” He shook his head sadly. “The whole time I was growing up, my father came and went. A battle here, a feud to settle there. He’d come home injured and angry — sometimes so angry, no one could approach him. And just when we’d ease back into something like normalcy, another conflict would flare up, and he’d be off again.” Silas had started out tapping the dashboard with each word, but the motion grew closer to successive bangs. “My father’s father died when he was six. I was thirteen when my father died. I don’t want that for Boone’s kids — or Kai’s, or Hunter’s, or the rest.”
Cassandra pictured Boone hugging Nina’s baby belly, then Kai lifting a tiny child with Tessa’s red hair and green eyes, giving the child a little toss and an exaggerated catch the way playful dads did. She pictured herself and Silas walking down the beach with a little girl between them, counting One, two, three! and swinging her in the air—
Her breath caught. Her heart pounded. Where did that image come from? She could hear the child’s laughter, see Silas’s smile. She could sense the soul-deep contentment and, above all, the peace.
She turned her dumbstruck face away just in time to avoid Silas’s gaze. Real-time Silas, not the one in her vision.
She sucked in her lips and rocked a tiny bit. That was just some kind of hot flash, right?
“If I can find a way to engage Drax one-on-one…” Silas continued.
She tried to get her mind back on the topic: a power vacuum in the dragon world. Two opposing forces, free-falling toward conflict that could plunge the shifter world into chaos. Dang. Maybe Eloise was right.
Dragons are vile, dangerous creatures. Medieval, almost.
“And you’re sure Drax would stoop low enough to poison your uncle?”
It was just like Eloise had said. Never trust a dragon. They’re all greedy and heartless.
But that description fit Drax, not Silas. She remembered Silas tossing a ball of yarn to Keiki. Stirring his coffee quietly in the meeting house, mulling over problems he didn’t want to burden anyone else with. She pictured him in the alley in New York, thrusting out a wing to protect her despite the pain he endured.
If she could have marched right over to her aunt’s house and hammered a fist on the door, she would have. You were wrong, Eloise. They’re not all greedy and heartless. I know.
“That’s the dragon world,” Silas sighed. “Constant upheaval. If a powerful dragon lord rises to power, a few generations may enjoy peace.”
She snorted. “Why can’t I imagine peace in a world dominated by Drax?”
Silas frowned deeply. “Oh, there would be peace. Right after he annihilates his enemies and makes the survivors cower.”
They drove on in silence, each caught up in their own thoughts. Cassandra looked up into the dark, hulking mountains of West Maui, though her mind was elsewhere. Koa Point. The way laughter drifted over the lawns. The peaceful lap of waves over sand. The quiet rhythm of daily life. Friends coming and going, each with their own cozy home and an unspoken devotion to one another.
Her fingers tightened over an invisible jewel. The Windstone. Might that help Silas overcome Drax? Had she been foolish to hide it from him?
“And you blame me for being uptight,” Silas joked, pulling his hand out from under hers. “That’s a hell of a grip.”
She forced a smile, but her mind was spinning. Silas. His shifter friends. The Spirit Stones. Drax. Were they all pawns on a chessboard, or did they command their own fates?
She thought about herself. Where did a one-eighths-witch with no magic power fit in?
“Silas,” she whispered, not quite sure what to say next.
His rueful expression said he knew the feeling. “Believe me, I know it’s foolish to take on Drax alone. But if I can find a way to do that without involving the others — to lure him into a fair fight as tradition dictates…”
Cassandra looked up at the stars, thinking. Lure. Dragon. How to lure a dragon…
What you need is a good lure spell, Eloise had said.
She scratched her dress in frustration. What she needed was some magic. Soon.
And air, damn it. She needed fresh air.
She leaned toward the open window, undoing the twist in her hair. She felt Silas’s eyes on her as she combed the long strands with her fingers, but when she looked over, he looked away.
Mr. Denial. Mr. Duty. Would he ever allow her in?
“You ever wish you’d gotten the convertible version of this car, just so you can feel the wind in your hair?” she asked.
He ran a hand through his neatly cropped hair — so much for the liberating feeling of hair whipping in the wind — and murmured, “We have the convertible too.”
She laughed aloud. “Of course. In silver, like this one?”
“White.”
Part of her wanted to follow up on the we part — she still couldn’t get her head around his uncle’s crazy will — but her thoughts ran away with the whipping wind, the indigo sky, the pinpoints of stars above. “Do you ever fly at night?”
He looked over sharply, and she leveled her gaze at him.
“I thought you hated dragons.” His resonant baritone cozied right up to her bones.
“I’m starting to realize there are good dragons and bad dragons. That maybe Eloise had just as many preconceptions as some of my other relatives did. The human ones, I mean.”
“And what preconceptions were those?”
She shook her head, almost embarrassed to say. “You name it. One of my cousin’s neighbors were from Pisa, and after forty years of living harmoniously side by side, her mother finally admitted they weren’t bad — for Italians, of course.”
Silas chuckled, so she went on.
“We made sure not to get her started on other ethnic or religious groups. Her discovery of the century was always something like, ‘You know, they’re actually nice.’ She drove us crazy with her closed-minded, old-fashioned ways. But I guess she grew up in another time, another place.”
Silas nodded. “Believe me, I know the type.”
“So, yeah. I’m starting to think Eloise might have been the same way, just with dragons. She let something slip about vampires too.”
Silas’s nose wrinkled. “Never trust a vampire.”
She slapped his thigh. “Listen to yourself!”
“It’s true.”
“Well, Eloise said the same thing about dragons.”
Silas spoke so softly, she had to strain to hear. “And what would you say about dragons?”
She smoothed her hands over her dress. Was she really ready to share her thoughts?
“Maybe they’re not all that bad,” she murmured.
He chuckled, waiting for more.
“They hardly ever belch smoke,” she said, trying to rile him up.
He flicked a speck of dust off his sleeve. “Hardly?”
“They don’t seem to prey on innocent virgins,” she went on.
Silas’s head whipped around. “Innocent what?”
She laughed. “I mean, judging by the company dragons keep. There’s Moira…”
He grimaced.
“…and me. And seeing as neither of us is innocent or a virgin…”
He shook his head, finally catching on to the fact that she was toying with him. “And here I was, thinking you were a fair maiden.”
“Ha. Think again.”
They both laughed, and somehow, her hand found its way over to his leg again.
“What else do you think of dragons?” His voice grew huskier.
She took a deep breath. Was she really ready to flirt with a dragon? Silas had a way of taking everything seriously. Really seriously. Who knew where things might lead?
Her girl parts cheered, eager for a steamy outcome.
“Well, there’s this one dragon in particular I’ve come to know…” she started.
He coaxed her along with a nod.
“A little reclusive. Kind of eccentric, you might say.”
“Eccentric?” He made a face.
“Well, he does live in this crazy house. He’s got the world’s coolest library…”
She caught him smiling at that.
“…an unusual group of friends…”
“Unusual?” he protested.
“…who are really, really nice. And you know what they say about friends…”
He tilted his head, waiting for the punchline.
“You can judge a person by their friends.”
That drew a tiny smile from him, so she went on.
“And there’s this really sweet kitten he’s very kind to.”
“You never know,” he warned. “It could all be an act.”
“I thought so at first. But then I saw him — all those late nights. All that stress he bottles up inside.”
“Dragons don’t stress,” he insisted.
“This one does. About his home, about his friends. About the future. It’s a big, bad world out there, and he’s trying to conquer it all on his own.”
He looked straight ahead, mum.
“He does everything for everyone but nothing for himself. And that’s what I love about him.”
His eyes darted to her then bounced away. God, the man was like a teenager, fascinated by but unable to talk about love. Had Moira burned him that badly?
“Love?” he growled.
She tried to play it cool. “Could be a figure of speech.”
He nodded, very businesslike.
She tightened her fingers over his leg and leaned close to his ear. “Could be not.”
His eyes glowed a warm brick color in the darkness, and her inner furnace heated by about twenty degrees. Silas’s heat reached out toward her, coaxing her closer. Inviting her to think all kinds of dirty thoughts, like unbuttoning his shirt and sliding a hand across his chest.
The car slowed and swung into a turn, pushing her body away from his.
“Home,” Silas murmured as they drove up to the gate of the estate.
Home. She turned the word over in her mind. Where was home? Where did she fit in with the chess pieces destiny seemed so intent on arranging?
The gate slid open, inviting them in. A pity Maui wasn’t bigger — she would have preferred to drive for another few hours. Because the moment Silas set foot on the estate, she’d bet he would head straight to his office and lock himself in with his problems.
The car pulled up to the garage — back where they started in some ways, but much further along at the same time. When Silas came around the car and offered her a hand out, she had to resist the urge to pull him in and drive back out the gates. But she let him walk her toward the guesthouse in silence.
A firefly blinked in the darkness, the sole light between tiki torches that had burned low. A bird fluttered through the trees. The meeting house was dim and lifeless, the others long since scattered to their homes. Everything was serene and safe, but her feet felt heavy as she walked toward the inevitable goodbye. Silas had opened up to her on the drive, but the most she could expect from him was a polite peck on the cheek and a whispered Good night.
Minutes later, they were at the porch of the guesthouse, peering over the waves. Cassandra closed her eyes, replaying the kiss they’d shared at the gala. A kiss that had come out of nowhere and turned into a force of its own. One she had never wanted to end.
Silas cleared his throat, and she braced herself. This was it. Silas felt the same longing for more as she did — she was sure of it — but he would lock it away.
“Cassandra,” he whispered.
At least there was that — he’d quit calling her Miss Nichols. A small victory?
She faced him, refusing to utter a word. Determined to make parting as hard for him as it was for her.
When he continued, Silas’s voice was croaky. “Can I take you up on that offer?”
She blinked. “What?”
He motioned behind him, still weary, yet hopeful, somehow. “That long walk on the beach. Would you mind?”
Her eyes went wide, and for a moment, she couldn’t speak. But when Silas stuck his elbow out, she threaded her arm through the gap and nestled close to his side.
“That would be very nice,” she managed, feeling the heat rush back to her core.