Chapter Four
Jacob didn’t look back as he made the trek to the terminal and certain facts settled over him. He no longer knew his own body. Even his thoughts felt alien. Why did this girl, River, entrance him? Why was he suddenly concerned about getting to know a woman? He never had been before. Women were a pastime, an enjoyable way to get from one day to the next. Nothing more. Was it only because, now, he would outlive every human being he knew? Was he trying to pitifully cling to some human need for companionship? In that case, what good would a human woman do him? She’d grow old and die and he’d go on living. Alone again.
He looked at his watch. Fifteen more minutes. He sat on one of the benches and waited, looking out over the loch. The sooner he got out of here, the better. He had training to do.
Dragon!
He sat upright and looked around. He was alone. The voice was in his head.
Are you there?
It was River, coming through loud and strong. He hadn’t severed the probe. Hell, she was brave.
I know you can hear me. I know that was you in my head when you told me you don’t eat people. Was it true?
He shouldn’t answer her. He should let her begin to believe he wasn’t real. But a part of him didn’t want her to. He also didn’t want her to live out her life in fear of knowing he was real and might return to eat her.
Yes, it’s true. He changed his voice in her head so she didn’t recognize it from the shop.
She didn’t answer for so long that he probed a little deeper. He heard nothing. Had she fainted? He stood up and thought about going back to the shop to check, then sat down again when he finally heard her voice, soft, shaky, hesitant.
Where are you?
Far away, he told her. But I will return if you tell anyone about me, as is our deal, no?
Well, you never agreed, she challenged.
I’m agreeing now.
I won’t tell anyone, she promised on the softest breath.
Then I won’t come back.
He spotted the ferryman making his way to the boat. Finally. He rose to his feet.
Is this real? Am I sick? Mad? Am I really having a conversation with a dragon? You can’t be real.
He paused his steps and looked back. Would you rather be mad, or forced to keep a secret of this magnitude? He was curious about her answer since he had a secret of the same size to keep.
I would rather keep the secret, she told him, her voice going a tad whimsical. It will fill my nights with music.
He smiled and he didn’t know why. He should severe their connection. Her voice in his head was too intimate, too close. What the hell was she doing communicating with him? How could she not be scared out of her damned mind that someone was in her head with her? No, not someone. Something. Maybe she was mad. Seeing a dragon up close was bad enough. Communicating with it telepathically should have shaken her.
Why aren’t you afraid of me?
I am, she answered. But how often does a girl get to speak to a dragon? Besides, I’m not even sure this is real.
Neither was he. How was it that talking to her was so pleasurable he almost didn’t want to go to Skye? He was the mad one! After months of waiting, he was finally flying—or he would be once he left Harris.
Did he want to take her to bed more than he wanted to soar the skies? He shook his head at himself and turned toward the long pier. He finally severed his probe and boarded the ferry.
*
The mountain ranges of Skye proved to be more hazardous to flying than he realized, with a hiker or two on every slope. He finally found a small vale called Camasunary, surrounded by mountains to the north, a loch to the west, and cliffs to the south. There was even a small bothy for travelers to rest. He hadn’t seen any travelers for two days. It was perfect. Finally, in the moments when night turned to dawn and the desire to fly was strongest, Jacob stepped naked out of the bothy and watched the stars begin to disappear. He knew why the blue hour was hardest to resist. The stars were calling him to follow. He wanted to go, every part of him ached to go. Home. The fulfillment of his most haunting desire.
He stretched his leathery wings, the span of which measured twenty-seven feet, and caught the wind beneath them. He’d have to be quick to catch the stars. He flapped his wings and spiraled upward, piercing the light, drawn by the music of the heavens.
He broke through space and smiled at the stars before diving back to earth.
Exhilarated by his power, he soared over the water to the island of Soay, population of one. He practiced that night and for the next month. Training in isolation, strengthening his will not to change during the blue hour, that time just before the sun begins to rise and the stars disappear, and how not to become human while he was flying.
He cooked and ate his own meals and answered to no one. There was a weak signal here but he was able to reach the band and let them know he was leaving for a while. He wasn’t sure he’d go back. There was nothing left for him there. Besides, the surviving Elders were likely hunting for Helena and Garion. If they found Jacob, they’d keep watch over him and he’d never be able to turn. He didn’t care about playing guitar. He’d found his true passion and would find a way to live it without the threat of discovery.
It was all very exciting. But as the days and nights passed, Jacob began to feel that familiar prick of something indefinable, something that left him incomplete. He’d been certain flying would fill the void. How could it not be flying when it was all he’d ever wanted?
And then there was the girl he couldn’t get out of his mind. Even while he flew, River haunted him. Part of his training involved resisting the desire to connect to her again, find out how she was doing. He worried about her effect on him. She was distracting and she wasn’t going away.
For years, he’d had his pick of women, some beautiful enough to make him catch his breath, but none of them had taken hold of his thoughts the way River had. It worried him because he wasn’t sure if his Drakkon emotions were involved and, if they were, what the hell did it mean? He’d never been attached to anyone before. Orphaned at three, he’d grown up with nurses, half-siblings who were always suspicions that he sympathized with Drakkon, and parole officers. He’d never loved anyone except his sister. Why was this happening now?
He remembered Garion’s words to him one night on the island, after Jacob had returned from the bed of Vitiana, one of the neighboring island’s beautiful inhabitants. You might spend many years with different companions, but as the only other Drakkon among us, you will always be alone. I can assure you, it will be difficult to deal with.
At the time, Jacob hadn’t given it much thought. He’d been alone his whole life. Now, he wondered how long eternity really was. Now, love frightened him. Did he want to keep a secret until it became obvious to his beloved that he wasn’t growing old at the same rate as she was? And then what? Watch her die?
It was all very bleak and he didn’t want to think about it. But after another two weeks of her fresh, wind-blown face occupying his every thought, even dulling the thrill of flying, he knew something had to be done. But what?
River? he probed. He wanted to know what this hold she had on him was.
Dragon?
Her voice washed over him like starlight falling from the sky. He basked in the sound of it and smiled like a damned fool. It’s Drakkon actually.
I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again.
You’ve been on my mind, he told her.
Really? She sounded cautious but curious. Why?
Damn, it that was a good question and one he didn’t have an answer for. What was he supposed to tell her? That he’d finally been given his wish to rule to sky, but it was becoming as empty as everything else? Thanks to her. I don’t know why—
How do you know my name?
He blinked, relieved by the change of topic. I can read your thoughts. I know your name.
Wait, she said, sounding a little taken aback. You can read my thoughts, not just hear my voice?
Hell, he was going to have to be more careful. What was he doing talking to her?
Can I read your thoughts? she asked.
He felt her trying to feel around inside his head and pulled back. Not unless I let you.
That doesn’t seem very fair, she brooded. I didn’t give you permission to read my thoughts.
All right, he said, startled at how easily he gave in. I won’t read your thoughts then. I promise. As for mine, why would you want to read them? I’m Drakkon. You’d have nightmares if you saw into my head.
Did he just hear her chuckle?
I doubt it, she told him lightly. You don’t seem that bad. In fact, talking to you is like talking to a regular guy.
Was that the reason she didn’t fear him? Because he’d been too nice? He should share a memory or two of when the Elders had shot down his sister and he burned five of them to ashes. She needed a dose of reality about what he was capable of.
But he didn’t show her. He didn’t want to frighten her.
What are you doing? he asked her instead, sounding like a regular guy and cursing his will that had abandoned him yet again and so easily.
Composing some music.
She wrote music. Another coincidence?
I’ve been inspired by you, Drakkon.
I’m flattered.
Would you like to hear something I’ve been working on?
No. He was Drakkon and a musician. Music was his weakness. He’d been a fool to contact her. He—
She began to hum. The blend of her light, airy voice and the dark melody she created stilled his blood, his breath while making his heart soar. He tore off his jeans and t-shirt and ran from the bothy. His skin changed the instant it made contact with the warmth of the sun. His wings unfurled and lifted him from the earth. He spun and dipped and soared in the clouds around the mountaintops, dancing to the magical music in his head, as powerful as the music of the stars.
Was it possible?
That’s what I have so far, she said, finishing. What do you think?
He closed his scaly lids and swooped toward the bothy. He’d inspired beauty and poignancy from her. Was that how she saw him?
It’s extraordinary.
Thank you.
He wondered, as he landed on his two human feet, if she was blushing.
You sound different, she said in the next instant.
Her ears were sharp. He’d been Drakkon. She had no idea she was talking to anything else. I was flying.
Oh. She expelled a slightly wistful sigh. What’s it like?
It’s like…like your music, he told her, not knowing any better way to describe it. It’s soul-shaking and makes my heart sing like the stars.
Her breath went still, and then he heard it, softer than a whisper, closer than his skin. The stars…sing?
He wanted to share this with her. Being Drakkon was new for him and he wanted to tell someone besides Helena and Garion, who already knew, what it was like. He’d probably never get the chance to tell anyone else.
Yes, River, they do. They sing to the Creator and I hear them when I fly.
What does it sound like?
He thought of ways to explain it in terms she could understand. Like bells in the wind, like the weighty, broad timbre of a double bass. Like most musical instruments, stars aren’t solid all the way to their core. Their sounds, or songs, get caught inside their outer layers and oscillate around inside. When a Drakkon takes flight, the sound resonates through space. Every star has a different pitch and they all come together in the heavens in a harmonic hum that reverberates to my soul.
She laughed softly in his head and filled his thoughts with images of her in his arms, in his bed when he woke up, laughing with him while they flew—no. She would never fly.
Now I feel silly for singing my song to you. After hearing music from the stars, mine must have sounded as bad as my old guitar.
That was the problem. Her music was even more soul stirring than the stars.
River, I don’t think we should continue communicating.
Why not?
Why not? He could think of a hundred reasons, mainly that he thought too much about going back to Harris to see her and get to know her better as Jacob. It was the last thing he should have been preoccupied with. And what the hell had happened to his strength of will he’d been building for almost two months? He’d heard her music and exploded into a Drakkon. The pull was so strong he doubted anything could have stopped him.
He should ask Garion about this. But then he’d have to admit that he’d been seen and was continuing to communicate with the human.
What did it mean? He’d not only heard music before, he played it. Why did hers move him so?
Just as when he was eleven, the course of his life had changed. This time, he wouldn’t screw it up. He had to leave the band and find something else to do with his life. He had plenty of time to train in any occupation. All the time in the world.
Time she didn’t have.
Goodbye, River.
Or did she?
He wanted to ask her what her full name was. What if her name was written in the Elder Scrolls, the list of every Drakkon descendant who ever lived? Garion could turn her.
No, what was he thinking? The world wasn’t ready for the return of Drakkon. Thanks to Jacob’s father using the Phoenix Amber to turn every Drakkon until only one remained, mankind had forgotten Drakkon and tales of them became nothing more than fantasy. Up until a few months ago the Elders weren’t certain Garion existed. Now they knew. They knew about Garion turning Helena, but not Jacob. If Garion started filling the sky with Drakkon, they’d all be hunted.
Goodbye, Drakkon, she answered softly, reluctantly, and filling him with regret.
They were both mad. This wasn’t some fairytale novel where the heroine rides off into the sunset on the back of her dragon. This was reality. Where the dragon might eventually eat her and would definitely outlive her.
He was better off not knowing her. He would forget her. He’d forgotten many.
*
Eventually, he returned to England to get all his affairs in order. He had a dozen messages from Aldric, an Elder of the Eleventh. He didn’t listen to any of them and blocked the number on the phone. He booked a flight to go home to New York next month and took up skydiving. For now, it was the closest he could come to flying. He walked among the masses, feeling out of place in the world and in his own body. He dined alone, drawing away from the crowds…and his fans when they spotted him.
Through it all, River haunted him. Each day, the struggle to stay away from her became more difficult. He found himself glancing at women, comparing them to her. Each one came up short. He missed her voice saturating him like his own breath. He did his best to ignore the strange effect she had on him. But he finally succumbed and found himself spying on her dreams. He watched her battle a horde of spiders wearing tweed vests and caps. It was quite entertaining. He sensed her music, different from what she’d hummed for him, but no less haunting. He smiled while she climbed a mountain, danced with the stars, and then with a man.
A man who wasn’t Jacob.
A man with hair as black as the roads on the Fiji Islands in the dead of night. Jacob wanted to burn it off with his breath. Who was he? Her lover?
Prior to a few months ago, Jacob had never had a jealous bone in his body. He’d never had a horde and was possessive over nothing. Until now.
In an effort to deny his pathetic state, he agreed to meet El Montgomery for lunch. El was Garion’s foster sister and one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. She was a descendant, born of the blood of Marrkiya of the Eleventh, and like Jacob, her greatest desire in life was to rule the sky. It had caused problems for Garion, who refused to alter her unless absolutely necessary—and problems for Jacob, whom her brother had altered.
Jacob had found El and her disinterest in him intriguing when they’d first met several months ago. But after her visit to the island and Garion’s request to Jacob to keep his relationship with her platonic, Jacob had forgotten her.
He watched her enter the restaurant looking like she owned the place in a designer shift dress of dark pink crepe, cut to accentuate her narrow waist and her long, slender legs. El was the type of woman who turned heads and knew it, and didn’t give a damn.
“I didn’t think you’d accept my invitation,” she said, sliding into the seat opposite him. Glossy black waves danced around her deep aqua eyes and a pleasant smile curled her pink lips. “You look like hell—and that’s not easy for you. Are you okay? Is being Drakkon having its drawbacks?”
“Yeah,” he murmured then flashed her a quick smile. “To both.” Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. El wasn’t taking his mind off River but making him think about her even more. He didn’t want to think about an eternity alone. A human lifetime was long enough. “So what’s this about? I was surprised to hear from you.”
She shrugged her delicate shoulders and glanced at the waiter when he arrived. “Guinness for me.” She slanted her wide cerulean gaze to Jacob. “You don’t mind if I have a beer do you?”
He shook his head and ordered a ginger ale. Once altered with the blood of Drakkon, alcohol became a dangerous poison. He let her gloat in the fact that she could still get drunk and waited patiently while she dismissed the waiter and studied Jacob.
“Your hair is blonder.” She let her eyes rove over the rest of his face and then shook her head as if trying to get him out of it. He wasn’t in it. “Anyway, my father’s made-up birthday is next month. They’re having something at the castle and they wanted me to invite you. I figured I should make amends for how I treated you on the island first.”
“There’s no need,” he told her. “I understand what you want. I also understand what Garion has given up to keep Drakkon from the sky.”
“Right, because he didn’t want us getting killed by The Bane. But my father says there are only a handful of Elders who give a damn about us taking back the sky. They won’t fight it.”
“And The Bane?”
She waved her hand in front of her as if shooing a fly. “We can take care of what’s left of them if they come calling.”
“Garion won’t do it,” he insisted in his usually quiet voice, unfazed by her argument.
“I won’t give up.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” he answered with a grin. “But you realize that your father gave up his essence to someday die with your mother. Nice for them. Bad for you. What if Garion turns you and you don’t turn? Will you accept that?”
“That won’t happen,” she argued. “My father gave up his essence but he can still smell my mother on the barest breeze. They still communicate telepathically. Did you know that? He still thinks he should be revered. Honestly, he hasn’t changed much. There’s still Drakkon essence in him. Even a trace passed on to me is enough.”
She was so determined, he couldn’t argue. He didn’t want to. He had no doubt she’d one day convince her brother to alter her. Maybe they’d get together one day when he was tired of being alone and she was immortal. But he doubted it. He felt nothing more than platonic affection for her.
She sighed, going back to looking at him. “You seem different. Has being Drakkon changed you?”
No. It was something else. A woman who’d crawled under his skin and into his thoughts, who tempted him, even now, to probe her mind and talk to her.
“It’s a woman!” El slapped her hand on the table, still studying him. “I can’t believe it!”
He looked up as she laughed. “Who said anything about a woman?”
“You haven’t flirted with me once,” she pointed out. “You’ve got this shy, uncomfortable thing going on. It’s very charming, but it’s not like you.”
“She’s just someone I met,” he admitted, giving it little regard. “She’s sticking in my head a bit.”
“Wow,” El said, sitting back and folding her hands over her chest. “She must be something. What’s her…wait, she’s not Drakkon.”
“No,” he said quietly, letting that monumental fact sink in deeper.
“Oh.” El’s demeanor changed and she leaned forward in her chair to cover his hand with hers on the table. “That sucks.”
He waved away her sympathy. “It’s okay. She’ll go away.”
But she didn’t, and the next morning she came bursting through his thoughts like a wave, tossing him from his bed.
*
Drakkon.
At first he thought he was dreaming. But then he wiped his sleepy eyes and smiled. Good morning, River.
She was silent for so long, he whispered her name, knowing she was still there by the sound of her breath in his head. Something was wrong. What is it?
I thought I could trust you, Drakkon.
Have I given you reason not to?
Yes, you have, she answered. Was she crying? Did she just sniffle? You’re a liar and a coward, and since you went back on our deal by coming back to Maraig, I’m going to tell anyone who will listen about you.
His head was spinning. What the hell did she mean he’d gone back on their deal by going back to Maraig? River, I haven’t been anywhere near—
You told me you were far away, yet you greeted me with “good morning”. You’re not even in a different time zone. Everything out of your mouth has been a lie. Now get out of my head! she shouted at him. You’re a danger and you need to be found and stopped.
She was going to tell people about him. He’d be hunted and he hadn’t even been Drakkon for a full six months. He—
Why did she think he’d returned? She couldn’t have seen another Drakkon unless Garion or Helena had flown to Harris. Since they were hiding from The Bane, it couldn’t be them. There was no one else.
Tell me what happened, River. Tell me or I’ll never leave you thoughts.
You know what happened. You feasted on half my father’s cattle and burned the rest. It was his livelihood and you robbed him of it. Not to mention what you did to the poor cattle!
Jacob’s stomach dropped to his bare feet. It sounded like a Drakkon attack but it couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be.
And if it was, what the hell was it doing near River? He wasn’t about to wait to find out.