Chapter Nine
Jacob Wilder was a peculiar man with an odd affinity for small, round stones. He’d plucked a number of them from the bank of Loch Seaforth beyond the village where they walked, examined them and, finding them unworthy, tossed them back down. Who was he? Where did he come from? How had he known about the attack so quickly? River had never heard of generous government agents or rock star dragon hunters. Would he really try to help her with her music? It was her deepest desire. He seemed to know her, to know exactly what she needed. He was open with her, telling her much more than she ever would have dreamed. He liked her. He told her so and, heaven help her, she’d nearly melted all over her sofa.
She liked him, too, despite one of his occupations.
But he was guarded as well, introverted, with introspective depth, protecting his secrets behind the armor of his radiant smile, the deep timbre of his voice, the sexy rumble of his laughter. He hunted Drakkon because he thought it was the right thing to do, and maybe it was. But he didn’t hate them and he played music she’d composed for one with passion that brought her music to life. He’d stopped himself from kissing her—and he’d wanted to. She had seen it in his eyes, consuming her in blue-gold flames. She could feel his desire for her coming off him in waves, but there was something else. Something that stopped him. Apprehension. Fear. Of what?
It was all so…peculiar.
“What are you looking for?” she asked him while they walked. Did dragons leave evidence behind? Like a tooth, or a scale? Should she go look around the crag where she’d first seen Drakkon? “Why aren’t there any footprints?”
“It never landed,” he answered, bending to pick something up from the ground.
River’s heart pounded at the thought of a dragon hovering over her farm sometime during the night. It could have easily swung its head around and burned her house down with her family inside. It wasn’t her peaceful White but a warrior Red that had attacked. She’d thought Drakkon was guilty. For some mad reason, she wasn’t afraid of Drakkon. She hadn’t considered the full threat of what had happened. That it was a different, more aggressive beast that had swooped down upon her little farm, not even bothering to land to kill everything. That there were more of them. She hadn’t wanted to consider it. The Red dragon had cooked and eaten her cattle. It could have easily eaten her and her father, and Ivy. She stopped walking and clutched her belly as everything hit her at once.
Jacob looked up from a round stone he was inspecting and abandoned his task to go to her.
“Are you sure the Red dragon is in the French Alps?” she asked him when he reached her.
“Yes,” he said covering her hand with his, still at her belly.
His touch soothed her and sent sparks through her nerves at the same time. She looked up at him and noted how the gold streaks in his hair glimmered under the sun. He was radiant…like a star, or an angel.
“Don’t worry,” he spoke on a sorcerer’s whisper, his eyes seeing through her to her fear. “I won’t let it hurt you or your family.”
She wanted to believe him. But he was just a man. It should be Drakkon offering his help. “How can you stop it?”
He smiled and lifted his fingers to a lock of her hair to clear it from her eyes. “Trust me, River.”
Trust him? She didn’t even know him. She looked into his eyes. What was it she saw there, heard in his deep, breathy voice? “You…” She paused, knowing she would sound insane. “You say my name like…”
Should she admit to him that she communicated with Drakkon? Would he laugh at her? Would he drill her and try to use her to trap the dragon? “This is all a lot to take in.”
“I know,” he said, his resonant voice imbued with compassion. He lowered his hand from her. He didn’t need it to still her breath. He used his gaze to touch her, to search her. “Tell me about your music. What inspires you?”
She knew what he was doing and she welcomed it. She didn’t want to think about dragons—bad ones or good ones. She needed a break from all the insanity for a few hours. She wanted to enjoy the company of a beautiful man whose smile was like the sun rising after a hard night. A man who wanted to help her get her music out there, who’d gotten his organization to replace her father’s cattle, and who’d committed himself to protecting her and her family. A man who wanted to know about her music.
“This inspires me. All of it.” She waved her free hand around her and smiled remembering that she was a bit peculiar, too. “There’s music in the roll of the waves and in the howling hum of the wind. Nature is a perfect balance of power and delicacy.” She felt her cheeks flush when she caught him smiling, watching her, listening.
“Go on,” he urged softly.
It felt good to toss off the burdens of her everyday, ordinary life and talk to someone about her music instead of what was for dinner or what else they could bring into the shop to attract more customers. Meeting Drakkon had brought something magical and exciting into her life, but she could never tell anyone about him. He lived in her memory, and it wasn’t enough.
Jacob Wilder was real and he was here.
“Only one man has ever heard it—besides you now.” And a dragon.
His smile faltered. “What man? Did you love him?”
“Just a guy I knew from University. And I thought I did.” Why was she even talking about Colin? She thought of him from time to time because there wasn’t much else to think about. “He turned out to be a jerk.”
“And a fool.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a soft smile. “He was. But I’m glad that things worked out the way they did. He wasn’t right for me.”
“How do you know?”
She cut him a playful glance and picked up her steps. “Because I’m much too complex for Colin’s simple brain. He didn’t like my music.”
He looked so offended on her behalf she almost giggled. “Really?” he growled. “I’ll make certain he knows when you’re famous.”
“Do you really think it’s good?” she asked. “Ivy and Colin are the only opinions I’ve heard until now. I mean, I’m confident it’s good. It comes from my heart, but you know this type of thing.”
“I do, and that’s why I’m telling you, Colin is a deaf fool.”
She laughed. It felt easy with him. Like when she and Noah laughed together, which they hardly ever did anymore. But she’d never wanted to kiss Noah. She’d never wanted to stare into Noah’s eyes for the rest of her life, or think of ways to make him smile. But she knew nothing about Jacob Wilder.
“Tell me about you,” she said. “You said you had no family. Where did you grow up?”
He continued walking for a bit, looking unsure about what to tell her. Why would he find it easier to talk about secret organizations and dragons than about his personal life?
“I didn’t mean to pry—”
“No, it’s all right,” he said, sounding like the wind. “I’ve never told this to anyone. I never thought I would. I’m unprepared.”
He’d never told anyone? Why was he telling her? He could have refused and remained mysterious, though she doubted his life story would reveal all about him.
“My parents died when I was three. Helena was two. We were the youngest of my father’s brood.” He paused in his words and his steps for a moment and cut his gaze to her. He lifted his brow as if expecting her to question him further. When she didn’t, he let his eyes dip to the ground and continued walking. “He was a wealthy man and had provided for us, should we be orphaned, which we were. We were shipped off to different countries for five years, raised by different nurses and teachers and then brought to live with our half-brother, Hendrick. At the time, Hendrick was the head of our organization, The Bane, dedicated to hunting dragons. We lived with him for three years until a dragon burned down our house and almost half my relatives with it. After that, we were mostly on our own.”
She stepped back. A dragon? A dragon had killed his father and his home and his family. She had a sinking feeling that there was much more to all this than he was telling her. She would have thought he’d hate dragons with a burning passion. She knew she would have felt that way had it been her father and family. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He quirked his mouth. “Why?”
“It causes you pain.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Jacob. You lost your whole family to a dragon. How could it not cause you pain?”
“I hardly knew them. Helena is my family, and we both escaped.”
She swallowed. He spoke like nothing fazed him. She wasn’t buying it. “You enjoy being mysterious.”
His low laughter filled her ears and made her eyes burn.
He stepped closer and watched as a breeze blew tendrils of her hair over her lips, beckoning his gaze, his fingers there. She didn’t back away when he spread his fingertips over her bottom lip and a hundred different visions of him kissing her flitted across her thoughts. He appeared as entranced as she, as if he saw the same visions and was about to make them all come true. He dipped his chin slightly, lifting his eyes to hers at the same time. Fire shone in their depths, wild and uncontainable. The heat consumed her, seeping into the farthest chasms of her heart. She had the urge to tip her head back and offer him her throat.
His nostrils flared slightly and he leaned in a little closer, enough that she felt his warm breath against her jaw.
“Ask me whatever you want.”
How could her heart pound so madly for a man she’d met this morning? What was this power he wielded so expertly over her that tempted her to tell him to take whatever he wanted.
“Is your heart spoken for?” She scowled, wondering when she’d lost control over her mouth.
But just when she began to defend her foolish tongue, he severed his gaze from hers and withdrew. “No, it’s not.”
She watched him take a step back, looking uncomfortable and uncertain. He furrowed his brow and then looked at her from beneath its shadow.
River wanted to say something but suddenly her rogue tongue went silent. What was wrong with him? What was this nerve she touched? Had someone he loved dumped him? Was he still in love? In denial? She understood the painful process off getting over someone. It wasn’t—
His expression softened and his eyes went starkly blue and a little apprehensive. “Is yours?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He quirked his mouth into something that could have been a smile of relief, or a contortion of terror. Either way, he swung around and continued walking.
Like she said…peculiar. But he made her smile and she wasn’t even sure why.
She picked up her steps and caught up with him. “Tell me more about your life,” she said, looking up and taking in the strength of his profile.
He glanced at her and his smile widened. “You would know everything then?”
Yes. Yes, she wanted to know everything about him. What were his favorite things? Why did talking about his heart make him go dark, but talking about the death of his family members had barely stirred him. “You said I could ask,” she reminded him, her smile matching his.
“It’s not good, I’m afraid. I got into trouble a lot. I drove Helena nuts. I finally landed a job modeling and then I met the guys from the band. That’s it. Nothing exciting.”
“Nothing exciting? You travel with the band, don’t you? You’ve been places, met people—”
“Is that what you want to do? Travel and meet people?”
“Yes, it’s my dream to spread my wings and—” She laughed at herself. “That’s probably not the best metaphor. I just know there’s more than this.”
“There is,” he agreed. “Why don’t you leave? Your family?”
She shook her head and stayed quiet for a minute, not sure she wanted to share this part of her life with him. “It’s partially the money,” she told him, wondering why it was so easy to share this…and her music with him.
“And the other part?” he asked in his slow, deep voice that was beginning to sound like music to her ears.
“To be honest, I don’t know if I can make it out there on my own. It’s scary.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who lets fear or uncertainty get in her way.”
She laughed and bumped his arm. He didn’t budge. “You don’t know anything about me.”
He leaned in and said above her ear, “Then tell me.”
Should she? He wasn’t staying in Harris. She didn’t want to start caring for a guy only to be dumped again. And she was pretty sure that if she fell for Jacob Wilder, she’d fall hard. Besides his tender attentiveness, he was beyond gorgeous, and he played music. He was shy and confident at the same time, which beguiled the senses right out of her. He was thoughtful and generous—yet there was something terribly dangerous about him that she couldn’t put her finger on, something familiar and feral in his burning eyes and the glint of hunger in them when he looked at her.
Don’t eat me!
No. What she was thinking couldn’t be true. Dragon shape-shifters weren’t real. They were the products of twenty-first century romance authors’ imaginations. Then again, dragons weren’t supposed to be real either. They were products of centuries old authors. Same thing.
She looked at Jacob walking beside her, farther away than he’d been a moment before. He lifted his eyes from the ground and then dragged his hand over his head, clearing his hair from his vision to look at her.
“I think…I think things are moving too fast.” Hell, that was the hardest thing she’d had to say in two years. Was she crazy? Dragon shape-shifters? Seriously?
“Okay.” He turned away—a bit ruffled. Was it her rejection that unsettled him…or something else?
“I’m sorry, it’s just—”
“You’re right.” He stopped her and returned his gaze to hers. “Things are moving too fast. I’m glad,” he said, aiming the crook of his disarming smile straight at her, “that at least one of us is clear-headed.”
She stared at his mouth while he spoke. She wanted to laugh at his claim. She’d believed for a moment that he was Drakkon, and for half that time, she didn’t care. She was anything but clear-headed.