Chapter Eleven
Jacob walked along the edge of the low cliff above the loch, alone in the dark. He didn’t need moonlight to see the gulls roused from their nests in the rocks. He could hear other critters scurrying around him, a waterfall nearby, the wind winding around the mountains. River was right. It was musical.
He’d left her several hours ago, after spending the evening with her in a barn lit cozily by strings of lights. Being near her had almost been too distracting. If not for the amp a few inches away blasting her music into his eardrums, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his thoughts off how she looked in the soft ambience, a crease marring her brow, one end of her bottom lip clenched between her teeth. She was worried at how her composition sounded mixed with the band’s metal influence.
He’d spent three hours working with Graham and the band on softening certain pitches and building the crescendo with shorter, harder chords. He knew how she’d meant for the piece to sound, what inspired her to compose it. But he also didn’t want the band to sacrifice their personal sound. No one rejected his ideas and, after some work, they had created something both River and the band were happy with.
River had been grateful. Thanks to a slight, subtle probe, he’d discovered that she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and hug him.
Hell, he was glad she hadn’t done it. After playing her music all night, Drakkon was close. Jacob would hold back his fangs, his scales, his wings, but he wasn’t sure he could leash his desire for her once Drakkon was involved. He would never hurt her. Never. He wanted to mold her to him, take her in his hands, with his mouth…these weren’t things he’d ever felt before, but he’d never had to deny himself. It wouldn’t have been so difficult if he didn’t want to be around River every moment, if he didn’t enjoy their time together so much.
He was changing, no longer the carefree bad boy from his pre-Drakkon days. He cared about River. He’d cared about her the moment he first looked into her eyes and saw the fight for her courage and composure amidst the terror of being eaten. Spending time with her inside his head and out of it, proved her resilience. She tended her father’s cattle, walked to work and back home each day to cook and tend to her family, and kept her dream alive by composing beautiful music. He didn’t know what kind of men she was used to in the past—the fool Colin might have hurt her, but she was an innocent when it came to love, as he was. And it was that purity—the most highly valued treasure to Drakkon—that called to him so strongly.
He’d had to leave her earlier, for the good of them both. Wanting to be the first and only man she ever loved was unfair and cruel, knowing what he knew.
He’d refused her offer to spend the night on the sofa instead of walking all the way back to Tarbert.
But he hadn’t gone back to Tarbert. Instead, he’d lingered about the outside of the house for an hour or two, watching the sky—and the light in River’s bedroom window go out.
She hadn’t tried to contact Drakkon again. Jacob wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He felt bad for not answering when she’d called. What was this hold River had over him? Was it a hold on his Drakkon heart…or his human heart? Or both?
He’d stopped trying to talk himself into leaving. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Every time he thought about going, thoughts of her pulled him back, as if she held him tethered by unseen chains.
He had to leave Harris eventually. Even if he wasn’t immortal—and a liar, they wanted different things. She wanted more than this quiet life. It was the longing he’d seen in her eyes when they’d met in the shop. Her music was her dream, the thing that gave her hope. He could make it happen for her. He knew enough people in the industry. He wanted to help her, but it meant going back into the world as Jacob White and risking being found by The Bane.
He wanted peace and quiet. He didn’t want to live in big cities anymore, living on the run, being deafened by city sounds and poisoned by exhaust and pollution. He wanted…this.
But this life couldn’t be his. Not without heartbreak. He’d done just fine all these years not relying on, or even considering his heart.
Hadn’t he?
What was the empty hole in his life that nothing could fill? He’d thought it was flying, but even in flight it followed him. He hadn’t felt it today—with her—with her family.
He looked up at the sky. Pre-dusk was approaching. The blue hour. Would he fly? It disgusted and scared him that, presently, he had no desire to be Drakkon. Would he let her stop him?
He watched the sky change, felt the stars pulling him, beckoning. He looked toward the water and then back in the direction of the house. No one was there.
His dream awaited. He pulled off his jacket and set it down on the rocks with his backpack. Flight was the instinct that drove him, not passion, not loneliness. He might have recently been turned, but Drakkon had always existed inside him. He undressed until he stood naked over the loch, then he dove into the water. He swam as far as he could and kept Drakkon clear in his mind. He wanted to shed his freezing skin, his heavy bones. He wanted to fly.
He felt his body start to change, beginning with the cold water no longer feeling cold. He concentrated on the fading stars and exploded out of the waves, sheets of water spilling off his great white wings.
*
River rose with the sun, after getting two hours of sleep. She’d been up all night writing music, driven by a muse made of flesh, not scales. Jacob had easily fit into their family dinner, patiently answering everyone’s questions. Her father liked him, but she’d expected that. Ivy had always been the hard one to win over, but she seemed to like him, too. Graham and the lads from the band certainly liked him. Who wouldn’t? He was like looking at a star…the twinkling kind.
She sighed as his face crossed her mind; the angles of his high cheekbones and square, strong jaw against the dangling lights while he sat on a stool and taught the guys how to play her song. She could have fallen in love with him then and there. Any woman with blood in her veins would have. River thought she might have, especially when he pulled eight hundred dollars from his backpack, bought one of the band’s acoustic guitars and handed it to her. She thought she’d loved Colin, but what she was beginning to feel for Jacob went deeper, to the pit of her guts.
She set out for Tarbert, though it was only to let Margery know she was calling out sick. She needed sleep. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any cell phone connection in her village so she’d have to go to work to get the day off. She didn’t mind. She wanted to stop off at the distillery, which did have WiFi, and do a little investigating on the Internet about Jacob Wilder.
She didn’t know him. If he were just a popular musician, she wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that he’d sought the limelight to avoid intimacy. The poor guy never had a family. No stable environment. He’d never formed attachments and probably thought he didn’t need them. Easy. She could deal with that for however long he was staying.
It was his involvement with dragons that she had uncertainties about. It made her see things that were impossible, like the way his smoldering eyes sometimes looked at her the same way Drakkon’s had when it had awakened from its slumber that early spring morning. Or hear something similar in the way he spoke her name. It was all so crazy and it swathed Jacob in mystery and made him even more irresistible. But she needed to keep a clear head and move with caution. If he was just a nice guy—with a sexy, slanted smile and killer eyes—and she really didn’t mean anything to him and never would, then she didn’t want to start anything.
But he made it difficult.
She was still thinking of him when a flash of light shimmered across the sky beyond the loch. Lightning? White clouds billowed across the sky, not gray. Drakkon?
Her heart leaped within. Drakkon? Where are you? She ran along the edge of the loch and spread her eyes over the sky. When her foot kicked something soft, she stopped and looked down.
A pile of clothes and a backpack rested at her feet. They were Jacob’s. She looked out across the water. What the hell was he doing here, and in the loch? She reached down and picked up his shirt and held it to her nose.
Is the hunter still hanging around?
Drakkon. She raised her gaze from Jacob’s shirt.
Yes, he’s here. Is that why you’re staying away?
What if it was? Would you send him away?
No.
You say that without hesitation, River.
I like him, she told him, a part of her wishing that he was Jacob and now he knew without her having to tell him face to face. She didn’t want to like him, or anyone. She wanted to keep her heart safely in its place, where it could never be abandoned again.
Silence reigned for a few seconds that felt eternal. What was he thinking? Where are you, Drakkon? Are you close by? Will I ever see you again?
You might.
Her eye caught movement on the water. Jacob. He swam out of the thin morning mist that covered the surface like a fantasy coming to life. She momentarily forgot about Drakkon and watched Jacob’s sleek body pushing closer. How far out had he been? Was he naked? Her eyes darted to his clothes…his knickers. Her face went hot. She spun around, keeping her back to him when he reached the rock and began pulling himself up.
She’d forgotten she stood over his clothes until he came to stand just behind her. She could hear his breath and feel his leashed energy.
“Did I frighten you?” His thick baritone along her ear made her kneecaps sizzle.
“No,” she said without turning. “What are you doing out here?”
“Having a swim,” he said, moving around behind her. “You?”
“I…I…ehm…” Should she tell him that she thought she saw Drakkon—or lightning? That she’d just spoken with the White in her head? What would Jacob say? Yes, River, I know. It was me. Or, would he demand to know everything and try to use her to catch Drakkon?
“You can turn around now,” he suggested.
She obeyed his sorcerer’s chant. She shouldn’t have. He stood shirtless and glistening beneath the morning sun. His hair hung loose to his shoulders, like a wilted halo, dripping water down his sculpted arms, his chest, his long, lean six-pack abs. He’d exchanged his jeans for a pair of looser-fitting, tan, drawstring trousers that rode low on his hips.
River bit her lip and looked up into his sunlit eyes eclipsed by his hair. He was temptation incarnate. Exactly the kind of guy she should steer clear of; gorgeous, trouble, baggage.
“Did you sleep well?”
She nodded. He was too dangerous. He tempted her to do too many things, like give up her body and her heart—lick a droplet of water off his shoulder or…lower. “Jacob?” she managed between two shallow breaths.
He dipped his head slightly so he could get a deeper look into her eyes. “Yes?”
How in the world could a simple word make her go weak and willing? Or was it the way he looked at her like he would have given her anything she asked. “Can you put on a shirt? I need to stay focused.”
He laughed the same way he spoke, deep and low, resonating through her blood.
She watched him bend to his backpack and pull out a black sweater. He put it on, but it didn’t help. The black only served to accentuate the opposite. The neckline of the slightly oversized sweater was a little tattered and worn around the cuffs. He put his jacket and boots in the bag and left his feet bare. He looked comfortable and at ease with himself, and so attractive it made her lightheaded.
“Better?” He held out his arms and she did everything she could not to throw herself into them. What would she find there? Passion and comfort, or insincerity and false affection that wouldn’t last an hour after he left?
“River, I understand that Colin hurt you—”
“What?” she asked, stepping away. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s why you’re cautious.”
She stared into his eyes. Did she just hear him right? What did he know about Colin and her insecurities? Colin was the first and only guy she’d ever slept with, who’d told her he loved her, and then left.
How did Jacob seem to know all her secrets and desires? Why did he feel so familiar?
She remembered what Drakkon had told her. He could read her thoughts. It was how he’d known her name.
Her blood pulsed through her veins. She had to command each breath. Was Jacob reading her thoughts? Was he—
“Ivy told me Colin was an asshole,” Jacob’s audible voice broke through her thoughts. He spoke on a low rumble, tender and hypnotic. “Don’t be angry with her, though. She spoke from love and concern for you.”
River thought about it for a minute. Ivy had told him. She wasn’t going crazy then. “Still,” she told him in a soft voice and then turned away. “My caution has more to do with you than with Colin. I have too many questions about you and the more I talk to you, the more I have.”
She began walking back toward the road. Jacob followed her, still barefoot. He tossed his backpack over his shoulder and raked his fingers through his wet hair, dragging it over his forehead. “You’re driving me mad. Is that enough to know?”
His confession was so unexpected that she turned to him and laughed. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”
He creased his brow. “Why?”
“How am I driving you mad?”
“You’re always in my thoughts.”
She stopped again and faced him. Was he always so disarming? Was it genuine? Was he truly addled by her? What if he was? What did it mean?
“What do you think about?” she asked.
His slow, seductive smile told her all she wanted to know, but he told her anyway. “Kissing you.” He took a step closer. His hair fell back around his eyes when he dipped his head to look at her. “Touching you.” He lifted his fingers to her jaw but barely touched her.
She wanted him to. She wanted him to reach out for her and pull her in close, take her in his arms and kiss her socks off.
He traced his knuckles over her cheek and then swept his hand behind her nape. He used little effort to pull her closer to him, his gaze hovering above her, burning on her parted lips, her breath captured by his. The tips of her breasts pushed against him and, for a moment, he looked about to ravish her completely. He drifted back an inch, teasing her, testing his limits, then returned, poised at the edge of her mouth.
Instead of kissing her, he sighed, muttered an oath, and pulled back. “River, there’s something you should know.”
Her head cleared and she reached out for him. “What is it?”
“I’m…” He began and then stopped again. He took her hand and held it between them. “Your dragon’s name isn’t Drakkon.”
How did he know what she called the White? Her stomach clenched in a knot that nearly doubled her over. “What is it then?”
It’s Jacob. Jacob White.