10
Rachel wasn’t sure if Doug had wanted to be alone with her, or it had just been that important to him that Brad call his parents and tell them the good news. To her surprise, she found herself looking forward to meeting them, and Brad’s brothers and sister, too. Even Doug seemed all right. He was quiet and a little gruff, but he was thoughtful, too, and he’d treated her with respect, accepting her as immediately into the family as Brad had.
Even if he did believe in the mate stuff, not everyone would be so immediately welcoming.
“Another nice thing about the grant,” he said, after Brad had left, “this way I can skip the interview stage. I’m…not much for interviews, honestly. Or charity, so don’t be concerned about that.”
Doug was handsome, in the same square-jawed, handsome way that Brad was, and similar in height and build. He didn’t wear glasses, but Rachel felt like he should be wearing them, or maybe one of those green eyeshades accountants used in old movies. His hair was mostly dark, like Brad’s, but there were streaks of gray at his temples.
And of course, there was his suit, impeccably tailored but just a little old-fashioned—Rachel didn’t know enough about suits to put her finger on what exactly made her feel that way, but it was there. Maybe it was the color, or something about the bow tie. Or just that it was a bow tie.
“You’ll like Brad’s parents,” he said. “They’re…warmer than I am.”
“You’ve been a real help,” she said. “Knowing that those guys—that they won’t just get out and hurt anyone else—that means a lot.” She picked up her empty plate and rose from the counter. “And I’m glad they won’t get hurt.”
“We believe in justice,” he said. “Not vengeance. I think that will please you.”
“It does,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
“We’ll get you what you need as soon as the others come. It won’t be too long now. And I did bring a spare snowsuit—it’s my niece’s, but it should fit you all right. She’s—” She watched him mentally struggle for the right phrase. “She’s a little taller than you but your build is similar. It should be enough to get you off the mountain. And we’ll clear out your snowmobile. I don’t want to damage any university equipment…especially if I’m funding research there.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Again. I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing since yesterday.”
“Well, if it hadn’t been for their attack, we might not have known they were up to anything at all,” he said. “So don’t think you haven’t made a contribution. I think we all would have rather had you uninjured, of course, but that wasn’t an option.”
“I feel all right now.” Despite Brad’s warning, the work he had done had taken away the pain. She wasn’t even bruised, as she’d feared she would be.
“Oh, and I took a look at your phone,” Doug said. “It should be all right. Low-level dry heat works very well to dry out electronics, so I…you know. Breathed on it a little.”
Breathed on it? “You breathed fire on my phone?”
“Gentle heat,” he said, a little apologetically. “I’ve done it before, if it’s any consolation. One of my nephews dropped an iPod in the snow, so I bought a few and did some experiments. If you’re careful and lucky, they can survive a full dunking, did you know?”
“I…did not,” Rachel said. “That’s interesting.”
He walked over to the container of rice; Rachel realized that her phone had been sitting on top of it since she got downstairs. He handed it to her. “Of course, we can replace it if necessary. The damage was done due to our intruders. If you like, you can face them in our courts, but we’ll talk about that later. There’s a lot more we have to go through first. Starting with the other clan heads, when they get here.”
She nodded.
“You don’t have to—we have enough evidence of what they’ve done. With proof to spare. You’ll have time to think about that…you’ve been through a lot. I don’t want you to think you have to make all these decisions today. Brad can help you with all of this…I’m sorry. I’m throwing a lot at you, and you’ve already had to learn quite a bit.”
“I’m okay,” she said. It was true, though she still felt shaky. Brad being there helped. “But thanks. I’m not quite sure I’m up to meeting Brad’s parents today, but aside from that I should be all right.” She turned her phone on.
“They’re in California right now,” he said. “You’re safe.”
The phone turned on, and immediately was taken over by messages. Rachel put it down on the counter and let the buzzes and beeps die away before she checked the screen.
A bunch of missed calls from her co-workers, a few voicemails, and twelve emails—most of which were variations on ‘are you all right?’ She picked the most recent email and tried to think of some reassuring words. “I need to come up with a good cover story,” she said to the screen. “Because ‘I met some dragons’ is not going to cut it.” She sat back. “I guess I can say some strange guys tried to attack me and Brad came to my rescue. It’ll cut down on the lies.”
“What am I lying about?” Brad asked, as he came back in. He was wearing a long-sleeved green t-shirt that showed off his muscles, and a pair of jeans that were just short of tight.
She wondered if she’d have a chance to get them off him today. “You’re not lying about anything, I just want to make sure we have a straight story about what happened yesterday.”
“What, you don’t want to tell your whole social circle you were spirited away by a dragon?” He winked.
“Well, I guess that’s up to you,” she said. “But I’m getting the impression you like your privacy.”
“You pick up fast,” he said, walking back over to her for another quick kiss. “I like that about you.”
“So I’ll tell them someone attacked me on the mountain, and you dragged me back to your…mountain lair.”
“There’s a hunting cabin not too far from here,” he said. “We can say that’s where.”
“Good,” she said. “And then we just got pinned down by the storm—at least that part’s true. The men—ran away? You waved a gun at them, and they ran away.” She was starting to enjoy this. She wouldn’t like lying to her colleagues, but this wasn’t the right place for the full truth.
“Works for me,” he said, moving close to her and pulling her into his arms again. It felt so impossibly right. “And then we fell in love at first sight.”
“You fell in love at first sight,” she corrected him. “It took me at least ten minutes.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
Doug interrupted them, phone in hand. “I have to let the other clan heads in,” he said. “They’ll want to speak with our intruders. After that, Rachel, we’ll let you talk with them. I’m going to bring them down to the lower level. We’re—well, I trust you, but you’re too new to start meeting clan leaders yet.”
“Okay,” she said. That sounded all right with her, anyway. “I can get all these messages sent out, anyway.”
“Let me let you into my hoard, you’ll be more comfortable,” Brad said. “You can even look through a sketchbook of mine if you get bored.”
“All right,” she said, feeling a little like she was getting tucked away like a treasure. But that was all right, at least for today. A little calm and quiet seemed fine. And maybe she could have some quiet time with Brad, too.
But Brad had to help Doug greet the clan heads first. Rachel spent a little while looking at the sun and the mountains through Brad’s window. In the morning light, his view showed how majestic and lovely the Adirondacks were, rising into the blue, blue sky. In Brad’s sketchbooks, she could see how often he’d sketched the view. She loved the careful, intricate detail he’d put into his drawings. He didn’t just have good eyesight, he had good observational skills too.
When she was tired of standing, Rachel sunk into one of the richly-brocaded chairs in his hoard to wait. She could have taken the desk, but that beautiful blue-green fabric (trimmed with gold braid, of course) was just too tempting. Instead, she settled down with her phone and started checking email. Fortunately, Brad had gotten a message to the authorities before she’d started trending as a missing person on Facebook or anything. And, she had to admit, it was a little bit flattering to see how many people worried about her.
It meant she had to send a lot of emails, though, most of them promising the full story later. She wondered if Brad had any friends on the local police force who could provide them with cover; it was going to be awkward to say she’d been attacked with no follow-up. She made a mental note to ask Brad, and then a second mental note to get his phone number.
Normally you ask for his number first, she thought to herself, and had to stop herself from giggling. It felt like she’d been pulled out of her normal life and dropped into some kind of fairy tale, complete with a genuine threat to her life. Well, at least it was a fairy tale with a happy ending.
She was emailing Karen at the university a longer explanation about what happened—still a lie, but enough truth for now—when Brad came back in the hoard and closed the door behind him. “How are you doing?” he asked.
She smiled at him. He looked so good. She couldn’t believe he was all hers. “I’m okay,” she said.
“They’re…they’ll be a little while,” he said. “I think the Raven clan’s going to take them in. As far as we can tell, they’re just a pair of dumbasses who don’t have a clan.”
“That’s good, I guess. But I thought from what you said that everyone had one,” she said.
“Everyone should,” he said. “But sometimes families split up, bad things happen—it’s unusual for two shifters to find each other and not get hooked into a clan, but not that unusual, I guess. Anyway. They’ll be part of a clan now, and accountable to them.”
This clan thing was something they took pretty seriously. “So…I’m part of the clan, now?”
“You will be,” he said, “once our mate bond’s sealed. A wedding, basically. We can take our time with that.” He walked over and sat on the end of the bed, next to her chair. “There’s one thing I have to do before that, though—but you had questions.”
“If I, like…like if I robbed a bank, would I—what would happen? Would the clan step in?”
“No,” he laughed. “Only if you, I don’t know. Robbed a bank with dragonfire.”
“Could I do that?”
“Um…maybe?” It was clear it had never occurred to him before. “If you had me help you, I guess. But…don’t do it, and we won’t have to worry about it. Basically clans step in where the normal human justice system can’t help. Like, if you robbed a bank and got caught, and I broke you out of jail as a dragon, that’s where the clans would step in.”
“That makes sense,” she said.
“I’m glad we could clear that up,” he said, straight-faced. “So…no robbing banks.”
“Got it.”
He shook his head. “All right, I can’t do this any more,” he said. He got back up, and swept Rachel out of the chair, into his arms, and back on the glittering bed. “That’s better.”
“That’s better,” she agreed. “You said there was something else you needed to do?”
“There is,” he said. “I have something for you.” He put his right hand up just above his breastbone, where it met the hollow of his collarbones. She saw a small glow underneath his fingers, and then—
Something glittering appeared in his hand as he pulled it away from his chest. Her curled his fingers around it in a loose fist.
“Wait—how did you do that?”
“It’s not that exciting,” he said. “It’s something I’ve worn since I came of age. It’s protected by magic. Not just the illusion that we use on the walls, because this is…well, it’s my heart’s true magic. A part of me.”
“Heart’s magic?”
He put his hand palm up and opened his fingers so she could see. It was a pendant on a golden chain, a simple, almost abstract symbol that looked like a tree. “If we were both dragon shifters, we’d exchange them,” he said. “But since you’re not, you just get mine.”
His heart’s magic. “What…so does that mean we’re together, forever?”
“It does,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”
It was beautiful. It shone when it caught the light. “That’s what…it’s meant to be, right?”
“You still get to say yes,” he said, carefully. “Or no. That’s part of what’s meant to be, too. Because it doesn’t come off. It’s…there to bind us together.”
Forever, she thought, and her heart surged with emotion. “I will,” she said, putting her hands up to meet his. “I say yes…this is what’s meant to be.”
“Good,” he said, “because I don’t know what I would have said if you’d said no.” He untangled the necklace and held it out. “Can I put it on you?”
“Please,” she said.
She sat as still as she could while he gently placed the pendant around her neck. “What does the symbol mean?”
“It’s our clan’s mark,” he said. “It’s very old, from when we were in the woods in Slovakia. We’re of the forest and the mountains.”
“That’s beautiful,” she said.
“I think so.” He stepped back. “It looks beautiful on you.”
“Does it?” She couldn’t imagine what she looked like. She was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, but she felt like she’d become a different person in the past twenty-four hours.
“There’s a mirror here, let me show you.” He extended his hand, and she took it to stand up.
The mirror was on the far wall, next to the bed, and was small, in a simple oak frame; an oddly modest touch in a room full of gilt. “My mother told me I’d need to freshen up in my own room once in a while. And that not everything needed to be covered in gold.”
“Definitely not born a dragon,” she said, before she could hold back the words.
But Brad just laughed happily. “Thank goodness,” he said. “If our family was nothing but dragon shifters…I can’t even imagine it.”
Rachel looked at her reflection. She looked pretty much the same as she always did, though her hair was a little the worse for wear from being in the cold and lack of access to conditioner. She wondered what it was that Brad saw that was so special. “I like the necklace,” she said.
“Well, that’s good, because you’re stuck with it.” She watched as he put his arms around her. “And me.”
“I think I can live with that,” she said, happily.
She heard a small chime. “Ah,” he said. “That’s our system. A lot gentler than a bunch of buzzers on an intercom. Doug said he’d let us know when you could talk with the men who hurt you.”
“Okay,” she said, swallowing. She knew she wanted to see them, but it seemed a lot more stressful now than it had twenty seconds ago. “You’re coming with me, right?”
“Of course,” he said, squeezing her waist gently. “And none of us are going to let anything happen to you.”
“Okay,” she said. She’d known it was true, but it was better when he said it out loud.
The men seemed much smaller as humans, but they still looked angry. One—a man with sandy hair and steel blue eyes—looked cruel, as well. The other man was broader, and looked younger than Brad. He seemed much less certain of himself, and he didn’t meet Rachel’s eyes with his own.
The two clan heads she hadn’t met had stepped out, for now. Doug had said they had to ‘make arrangements’ to bring these men into their clans. Now they would be punished by the clan, and accountable to the clan. Brad had told her they’d be separated for at least six months. Judging from the way the younger one seemed to be deferring to the older one—even as they were both tied to the stone bench—that was probably a good idea.
“These are the men who tried to kill you,” Doug said.
“We just wanted to scare her,” the older man said, his lip curling.
“Scare her to death,” Brad muttered darkly. “Look, you can save that crap for—”
“Brad,” Doug said, gently, but Rachel and Brad could both hear the warning underneath it. “Rachel, do you have anything to say to these men?”
There was a lot she could say. But she’d thought about it, and she wanted to keep it simple, so they’d remember her words. “What you did was wrong,” she said. “I won’t ask for an apology now, because I know it won’t be sincere. But when you’re done with…what the clans have asked you to do your penance or punishment—whatever—that’s when I want the apology. Because I deserve it, and because you could have killed me, or any of the other scientists who work in these mountains, just for wanting to care about our home.” She took a deep breath. “That’s all.”
Brad squeezed her arm and nodded his head. “All right,” he said. “And that’s a lot nicer than you deserve.”
“We’ve all noted your opinion,” Doug said. “Thank you, Rachel.” The look on his face was steady and sincere. Apparently she’d said something right. “Now, Brad, I think it’s time you get her back home. My suggestion is you take her back to her apartment so she can get some fresh gear before she starts up that snowmobile.”
“I’ll do that,” Brad said. “Thank you.”