5
Rachel got up after Brad left and checked the cupboards. There was dried pasta in addition to the rice, canned beans, even some canned vegetables. They could definitely get a decent meal together, even without opening the freezer. And it was a really, really nice kitchen. Marble countertops and expensive cupboards with unusual latches. Rachel realized they were the kind of latches that could be opened with fingers or claws, just like the doors. And it explained why there was enough room for a wheelchair to move around comfortably; dragons were big, even young dragons like the ones who had made those scratches on the walls.
Rachel tried to picture it: a whole family of dragons, just walking—did they walk?—around the kitchen. Were they more comfortable as dragons or humans?
Brad seemed willing to talk about it all. He’d taken her learning his secret well. That was a relief, since they were going to be alone together, at least for a little while longer. Hopefully he at least got a signal and her team would know that she was all right.
What was she going to talk with him about? “Hey, you’re really handsome” probably wasn’t a good conversation starter. She hadn’t asked him what he did for work yet, if he did work. Did dragons hold day jobs? Or did they just sit on…big piles of gold or something? He’d called this place a ‘lair.’ Did that mean there was treasure? Was she in a big marble treasure chest?
This had been one hell of a day.
She was aware that her mind had chosen not to deal with the worst part of the day for now, though her ribs were still aching. She remembered the panic, the falling, the cold. But it didn’t scare her or upset her. She knew it might later. But for now her body was content to be warm and dry, with food in her stomach and an incredibly good-looking guy looking after her. A good-looking guy who could turn into a dragon.
One hell of a day, indeed.
She heard Brad’s footsteps echo down the steps before he spoke. “I got someone,” he said. “They’ll pass on to your team that you’re okay. She said the snow’s already coming in, so we’ll be safest if we sit tight for now. Will the snowmobile be okay?”
“Sure,” she said. “Not the first time it’s been caught in a storm, that’s for sure.”
I should probably say something about how awful it is we’re stuck in the storm, she thought.
But she didn’t really feel that way. She was certainly in no rush to go back into the cold; she’d just started warming up.
She didn’t really want to leave this place, either. Or Brad. It wasn’t every day you had your life saved by a bona-fide dragon. And she was pretty sure most dragons didn’t look as handsome as Brad did, or make her heart beat quite as fast. They probably weren’t as thoughtful, either. “There’s rice and beans and a lot of canned stuff in the cupboards,” she said. “I figured you wouldn’t mind checking the freezer.”
“Nah,” he said. “You mind if I do it now?”
“I’m warm enough,” she said. Now that she had a warm body and food in her stomach, she felt plenty warm. Especially when she looked at Brad. He walked past her and opened the freezer door, and she got a good look at his broad back and excellent ass. Not a bad view at all.
“Frozen lasagna, if we’re feeling really lazy,” he said. “Homemade, too.”
“I don’t mind cooking,” she said, “but that sounds like a lot less work.”
“I agree,” he said. “Lasagna for now, I think.”
Rachel caught a glimpse of the freezer over her shoulder; it looked very carefully packed. She saw a lot of labeled freezer containers. “Is that your uncle? All those labels?”
“It sure is,” he said. “My uncle is…very particular.”
“I see,” she said, and couldn’t help grinning at the picture that formed in her mind. She wondered if Uncle Doug wore suspenders, or if that was just her fancy. Maybe a bow tie, too.
“Anyway,” he said, pulling the lasagna out and checking the label, “Doug says if we put it in the oven frozen it’ll be ready in two hours. That sound good to you?”
“Sounds fine,” she said. Her stomach was full enough for the moment. And lasagna hot from the oven sounded pretty appealing.
“I can make us breakfast in the morning. Wish we had eggs, but there might some sausage in here. Or bacon. You—do you eat meat? I know you eat fish, but—”
“No, it’s fine, I eat meat.”
“Sausage it is,” he said. “And there has to be bacon. No way he left this freezer without—ah, there it is.” He smiled. “Reliable as ever. Bacon, sausage, maybe there’s some cheese, too, I think cheddar freezes, right?”
“Yeah, any hard cheese freezes, I think.” How the hell was she having an ordinary conversation about cheese with a dragon shifter she’d just met?
But that was the weird thing. He didn’t really feel like a stranger. He felt like someone she’d known her whole life. Like this was basically just an ordinary night, just two people together figuring out what to eat.
“Can I…ask you something? Something kind of weird?”
“Sure,” he said. “I guess I should put the meat in the fridge—”
“Is it—do dragons have any kind of effect on people? Like, is it normal for me—I feel like I should be freaking out, but I’m not. I’m just…it feels totally normal to be with you.” It felt right.
“Well, some people…let me take care of this stuff. I want to look at you while I’m talking.” He turned the oven on, opened up the refrigerator, and put in the meat. Rachel glimpsed some sodas and what might have been beer on the shelves. “Okay.” He turned around and walked over to the counter Rachel was still sitting at. “Can I sit?”
She’d put her snowsuit on the stool next to her. “Oh, of course, just move it.”
He carefully took her snowsuit and moved it down the line, then sat on the stool next to her. He moved—she wouldn’t call it ‘like a dragon,’ because she didn’t have any idea of how a dragon moved. But there was something solid about him, something powerful. He was secure in his movements, deliberate. Sexy.
But maybe that went without saying.
“So this is going to sound kind of weird,” he said. “But you already saw me turn from a dragon to a human, so maybe not as weird as it would’ve sounded a couple of hours ago. There are humans who—well, my grandfather always said that they had harmonics with dragon shifters. That they weren’t scared or distrustful. So it’s normal, if that’s any consolation.”
“I’ve got harmonics,” she said. “Really?”
“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use,” he said, and his smile made her feel even warmer, all through her body, curling into her toes and making her ache a little for reasons that had nothing to do with her bruised ribs. Harmonics. Maybe that’s it. “I think you’re pretty great, though.”
She couldn’t help but feel skeptical about that. “You just met me.”
“And you’ve already felt your way past our magic. That’s impressive.”
He was using a lot of…very complimentary words. Her face reddened a little. “That’s—that can’t be that big a deal.”
“It is,” he said. “Our illusions are very powerful. Most people don’t even think about looking beneath them. That’s how we’ve managed to stay hidden all these years.”
“People know dragon shifters exist,” she said, skeptically. “I’ve even seen some.” On television.
“They do,” he said. “But not much more than that, right? Have you ever seen a lair before? Do you have any idea where we are?”
“I know we’re in radio distance of fire and rescue from what you’ve told me,” she said. “But no, I don’t know more than that.”
“When dragons go public, things can get…complicated,” he said. “Treasure hunters. Sometimes even the government, wanting to get their hands on gold and jewels. Every clan’s got a story. It’s better to stay quiet about it. And that includes keeping the lair a secret. But…the people we trust? We don’t hide from them. Would you like to come up to the radio tower? I want you to see.”
“Okay,” she said, and stood up. “I’d like to see. It…it’s not bad in here, but I do feel a little like I’m in a cave or a secret lair.” She looked a little sheepish. “I mean, I am in a secret lair, I guess. But it doesn’t really feel like I belong.”
“You’re my guest,” he said firmly. “That means you belong.”
She took his hand. His grip was strong and confident. She tried not to shiver, but his touch sure felt good, even if it was just his fingers against hers.
“So you’re a scientist of some kind,” he said. “But I haven’t asked you anything more than that.”
“Oh, I’m a geologist at the university. There’s been a lot of unusual seismic activity here, and they sent me out to take some samples, see if there was anything visually obvious. Sometimes out here in the Northeast, we’re so familiar with our mountains we kind of take them for granted. They do something unexpected, we’re suddenly all on our toes.”
“That’s why I was out here, too,” he confessed, opening the door he’d been coming in and out of and letting her take the stairs ahead of him. “And I’m afraid it’s connected to the person who attacked you.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s—no one messes with another clan’s lair. It’s almost unheard of. The kind of thing people used to fight wars over, though that was all a long time ago. We were all hoping the rumbling was just, well, what you figured, some fault deep in the mountains no one realized was there, or maybe the lair needed repairs. But if someone’s trying to push humans off mountains? They might be doing something to the mountain itself. And they sure aren’t trustworthy.”
“I see,” she said, not sure she actually did.
“It’s a lot to take in,” he said. “Especially when you’ve just met your first dragon shifter.”
“I have,” she said. They’d reached the top of the stairs. He’d left the door open, so she stepped up on the landing. “So this is…the radio room?”
“Basically,” he said. “Can you see out the window? There’s a defogger if we need it.”
“No,” she said. “It’s…it’s nice and clear. It’s beautiful.”
He stepped up beside her. “Thank you,” he said. “Can you see where we are?”
She looked out. The sky was spotted with stars, and the moon was out, so the light bounced off the snow, making the night less dark, at least for now. She had to take some time to get her eyes used to the darkness, but eventually she could make out the shapes around her: mountain peaks. They were high up, right in the Adirondacks, not far from where she’d been attacked. “We’re—this is carved right in the side of the mountain, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he confirmed. The lair was inlaid on the western side of the peak, so it would be illuminated by the setting sun every evening. It’d be quite a view. “Not far above the treeline.”
He was standing very close. Rachel wondered if he realized how much she liked that.
She focused back on the lair. “And it’s been here…how long?”
“This was the first thing we put in,” he said. “I don’t remember the exact date. We’ve expanded and changed it over the years, but the window’s been here from the start. It’s all protected by illusion.”
“That’s amazing,” she said. If she looked deep into the sky, she could see the fuzzy look of the storm starting to roll in, darkening the sky and starting to blur out the stars.
“It’s crafted so no one outside the clan can see it, not even other dragons, which is one of the reasons I’m not too happy to have any kind of strange dragon around here. It’s possible that they’re trying to build a lair of their own and just don’t know we’re here, but I wouldn’t call it likely. And whoever it was has violated our code of honor.”
“How so? If they didn’t know your lair was here—”
“Not that part of the code,” he said, and she could hear sharp anger in his voice. “They hurt a human.”
“Me?”
“You,” he said. “No matter who you were, when I saw you there, it was my obligation to help you. And to harm someone—” He shook his head. “That’s more than a breach of trust, it’s a break from our code.”
“Even if a human is dangerous?”
“You’re not dangerous,” he said. “Even if you’d seen through our illusion, we’d be able to talk to you. Try to persuade you. Any harm at all is a last resort, even if it’s for self-defense. My grandfather always described it as our obligation.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. How did dragon shifters see ordinary humans, then? “Obligation? Like caring for helpless animals?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Not like that at all. Like caring for each other. We’re not allowed to harm other dragon shifters, either. It’s just a little more challenging to for one dragon shifter to hurt another than a human. Our code is very important to us. Without it, we’re just—I don’t know. Beasts.” He clearly took this seriously.
“You’re definitely not a beast,” she said. He was so close to her. If she reached out—
She shouldn’t. She’d just met him. And as much as she knew in her heart that she could trust him, she’d been through so much today—she was still a little shaky from it all. She couldn’t just throw herself at her protector, no matter how hot he was.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said. Every compliment from him was making her warmer. If he said too much, she’d be floating on air…or melting into a puddle. She wasn’t quite sure which.
“I still—you seem pretty trusting. I mean, you just met me. And now you’ve showed me where you live.”
“With all respect, if you did start telling people, would anyone believe you?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “But that’s a good point.”
“And the magic keeps us well shielded. If you tried to come back here, even with what you know, it wouldn’t be easy without any visual cues.”
It sure wouldn’t. “And..is it better to be a dragon? Or a human? Do you guys have—preferences?”
“Most of us spend most of our time as human, so we like to be in dragon form here sometimes,” he said. “But really, either way, the dragon’s here. Part of us.”
“Okay,” she said. “So. We eat, we wait out the storm—is there a place to sleep that isn’t the room I was in? It’s not very—” Friendly. Comfortable. “I mean, it’s fine, I appreciate it—”
“There are real bedrooms,” he said. “Like the kitchen, they’re a little—dragon-ish. But you’re already used to that, so you should be fine.”
Dragon interior design was actually pretty interesting, even aside from all the ‘doorways and halls built for big dogs or small ponies’ thing. “That sounds fine,” she said. “I don’t suppose there are any rooms with windows, though.”
“A few, and I could create one in one of the rooms that doesn’t with illusion, if you’d like. I want you to be comfortable. Speaking of which, how are you feeling?”
“Achy,” she admitted. “Feels like my ribs are bruised.”
“I’m sure they are,” he said. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about this, but we have healing magic, as well. If you’d like, I can…do a little work on your ribs, make them feel better. I can affect the pain, too, turn it down. There’s some painkillers downstairs, the normal kind. I should have offered them to you sooner, but I hadn’t realized you’d been so hurt until I saw you going up the stairs. I should have known it was painful—”
“I went down pretty hard,” she said, hugging herself a little, despite the pain. She could picture them, grabbing at her, holding her down—
“Hey,” he said, and touched her arm. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going to let that happen to you again.”
She looked up at him. His face was serious. Determined.
“I promise,” he said.
It was enough to bring her mind back to the present. Back to the fact that Brad was looking straight at her, looking at her like she was something precious. Something he’d want to protect.
Despite the pain and the fear, warmth spread through her.
He seemed to have realized his intensity, and he stepped back from her a little. “I—did you want me to do anything? Help with the pain? We can go down and hit the medicine cabinet too. I won’t be offended, I promise.”
“If you can—it’d be faster than the pills, right? And it would…fix some of the damage?”
“It would,” he said. “I could do it right here and now. Won’t take more than a minute or two.”
“That easy?”
“It’s not a cure-all,” he said, “but it would take the edge off. And you won’t have to worry about re-injuring yourself. I don’t like the thought of you in pain.”
That was…well. It was nice. “Do I need to—do anything?”
“Just hold still,” he said. “It won’t take very long.”
“Move my arms, or—”
But he was already doing—whatever it was he was doing. His eyes were focused on her torso. She felt her face heating up again. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had looked at her so intensely. She couldn’t even remember when she’d wanted a man to.
He had his hands held out, just above her skin. Even though her ribs ached, part of her still wanted him to pull her close.
She wanted it even more as the magic took effect. The pain started slowly fading from her body, not completely gone, but muted. She could feel how close he was. He smelled clean, like soap. This close she could see the soft hints of waviness in his dark hair, the small, subtle variations from dark brown to near black. She could see how long and thick his eyelashes were.
She could feel how her heart was starting to pound.
Was dragon magic supposed to be a turn-on? Or was it just that she was so close to Brad now?
“My uncle,” he said, his eyes still glued to her, “could heal you completely, but I’m not skilled enough. Or old enough. Usually you only get that much power when you pass thirty.”
“You get better with experience?”
“That’s part of it,” he said. “Hold on—” He frowned a little in thought, and then put his hands down. The pain had faded pretty dramatically. “Better?”
“Much better,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Good,” he said, smiling at her. “Anyway, some of it’s experience, some of it is that our power really does grow, mostly, as we age. As we near the end of our lives, it fades again, but I’ve got a way to go before that.”
“Do you live—long?”
“We’re about the same as humans,” he said. “Generally a little more long-lived, and we’re less likely to die in, say, an accident. A little tougher.”
“Not as…thin-skinned?”
He laughed. “You could say that. I’m going to try to radio my uncle now, and you’re welcome to listen in.”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s pretty up here.” It made her wonder what it would be like to be a dragon shifter, to soar up this high in the sky. They must be pretty good at handling high elevations, too. She looked out in the sky, up above the clouds, and tried to picture Brad out there. It seemed hard to believe, even though she’d seen him in his dragon form. How long could he fly for? Was it strange to be here on the ground as a human? She had so many questions, and they all felt intrusive and rude.
He’d been pretty generous to explain things so far, though. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she just asked a few more things. He’d been kind enough to save her, to tell her the truth—even to help her with the pain from her injuries. That meant he trusted her, right? At least a little. She liked that thought. Tomorrow, she’d probably be back at work, pretending none of this had ever happened to her.
Oh, she probably would have to talk about getting hurt. She might even be able to say a little about her rescue. But this strange, fascinating lair, and the dragon shifter who called it home? Not a chance.
Maybe she could tell them about the man she’d met. But they probably wouldn’t believe how handsome he was. Rachel could hardly believe it herself.
She could just put her hand down and touch his hair. In her fantasy, he would lean back against the touch, maybe moan a little, and she could put her face down to kiss him—
Brad shook his head, startling her out of her reverie. “Just figures,” he said. “Doug’s nowhere to be found. Half the time when I’m up here, he’s calling for me, and now that I actually want to talk with him—” He sighed. “I’ll try again after we eat. But there’s no sense in sitting around here all night. Do you want to see the rest of the lair? It’s more interesting without the illusion.”
“It was interesting already,” she said. “But I’d love to.”
“Good, because there’s some things I want to show you,” he said, eagerly. “I hope you’ll like this place.”