Chapter 3
“She’s so adorable,” Lisa said, staring at Anarian. “Can I hold her?”
Brad hesitated, but out of all the people crowding around him and his daughter, Lisa was the only one he felt like he kind of knew. Only from her picture in the paper, true. But she was also mated to Lyrian’s brother, making her his daughter’s aunt.
“Sure,” he agreed, handing the baby over.
Lisa cooed over her. Several others, Brad wasn’t sure if they were dragons or humans, crowded around similarly entranced by the baby.
All except for Karla, the human mated to Lyrian’s other brother. She eyed him calculatingly. And her scrutiny made Brad more than a little uncomfortable.
“So, how did you find out about dragons?” he asked her, hoping to break the ice.
She stared at him for a moment longer, then shrugged. “I’m an archaeologist. Someone showed me an artifact and told me I should go to the Dragon Scales, an interesting geological formation nearby.” She smiled then, and the expression changed her face completely. “I woke Taurian without having any idea he was a dragon. The rest, as they say, is history.”
So she’d been as deceived by all this as Brad was.
Somehow, that made him feel a little bit better. Better enough to say, “It comes as quite a surprise, doesn’t it?”
Karla nodded. “How long have you known?”
Brad gave a laugh. “Oh, about three days, or is it four?”
That surprised her. Her eyes widened, and she glanced over at Anarian, then back at him. Her question was obvious, even without asking.
“Lyrian didn’t tell me,” Brad said softly. “In fact, after we’d… mated…” that was how dragons said it, wasn’t it? “She refused to speak to me. I went back to America, to my job. I only found out about Anarian when I came back to Australia after my uncle died.”
“That must have been quite a shock,” Karla said softly.
“That’s an understatement. It never occurred to me that I might be a father.”
“Not to mention the father of a dragon,” Karla added.
“Yeah, even more of a shock.”
Brad remembered how he’d found out, the dragon swooping straight towards the house, spewing lightning, and he couldn’t help an involuntary shiver. Even though he knew her now, even though Kyrian was going to mate with his brother, it didn’t stop any of the fear the memory of that meeting brought up.
“What happened?” Karla asked quietly.
“Is it that obvious?” Brad said jokingly. He told Karla the story briefly, and she listened, her mouth pursed.
At the end of his recital, she put a hand on his shoulder and said, “That must have been terrifying. I know what it’s like to have a dragon coming at you, and it’s not fun.”
Brad stared at her for a moment, then relaxed. This woman wasn’t a threat. In fact, she just might be a friend. “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “Though I think I’m getting kind of used to it now.”
Karla laughed at that. “Probably a good thing, because even though we have a kind of truce with Trima clan, I’m not sure we can count on it staying that way. If you’re mated to a dragon, you can never guarantee you won’t be facing off against another angry dragon.”
He wanted to laugh and agree with her, but he needed to set one thing straight first. “Lyrian and I aren’t mated.”
“Not yet.” Karla winked at him.
Her implication twisted Brad’s stomach and heated his face. He wished he could smile and joke with her. Wished he could believe that he and Lyrian stood a chance. But it wasn’t to be.
And there was no point in pretending.
“We’re not planning on it either.”
Suddenly, there was a silence in the room. The others had been so busy cooing over Anarian, Brad had forgotten he was surrounded by other dragons and humans until they all stopped talking and stared at him.
If it were just him and Karla, Brad might have admitted the truth to her. She’d been through the same thing, she might understand. Might even have some advice for him. But somehow, he didn’t feel like admitting the whole mess in front of all these other people he didn’t know.
So instead he said, “I have a job back in America. I’m a heart surgeon. I can’t… I can’t just walk away from all that.”
The stares continued, one or two might even have looked a little accusing.
Karla glanced over at the others, at Lisa in particular, then back at him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”
As though her words were a signal, the rest of the group went back to cooing over Anarian, but their voices were softer now, as though they didn’t want to miss anything else that might be said.
Brad wished he could escape. He felt bad enough about how things were with Lyrian, he didn’t really need the judgement of all the other dragons and humans.
“I’m sorry,” Karla said again, her voice low. “I just thought…”
“It’s okay,” Brad said quickly, interrupting her before she could say anything more.
“I think Anarian is getting a little overwhelmed,” Lisa announced loudly. “I think we should all give her some peace and quiet to get some sleep.
The baby looked just as cheery as she always did, so Brad could only assume this announcement was for him. And he appreciated it. He tried to signal that, by giving Lisa a smile as she handed Anarian back at him.
Lisa gave him a wink, then carefully herded the reluctant people and dragons out of the room.
All except Karla. Lisa didn’t even try to encourage her to leave, and Karla didn’t make any move towards the doorway. Brad looked down at his daughter, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Karla’s voice was quiet.
Brad gave a laugh. Was she really going to give him an out like that? “Not really.”
He looked up to find her expression concerned. “Do you really think it’s that easy just to walk away from them?”
“You’re forgetting, I already did it once.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And how’d that go for you?”
Brad gave a short laugh. Maybe she did get it. Maybe she’d even tried the same thing.
He didn’t want to remember the sleepless nights, going over and over his time with Lyrian, or the erotic dreams that had haunted him once he’d managed to get to sleep. “Not so well,” he agreed. “But what other choice do I have?”
Karla raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Her implication was clear, and staying was obviously the option she had chosen. But that didn’t mean it was right for Brad. To him, that choice was just as impossible as all the rest.
Helplessness welled up in him, along with frustration. “Lyrian lied to me. She only used me to heal. She never felt the way I did, as evidenced by the fact that she pushed me away.” He glanced down at the sleeping baby in his arms. “And she felt she needed to keep Anarian’s existence from me. If my uncle hadn’t left his house to me and brought me back to Australia, I might never have even known I was a father. How can I trust her after any of that?”
Karla’s expression was sympathetic. “Dragons make mistakes, just like humans do. The Mesmer bond is very strong and can overwhelm common sense. It’s obvious though, that you feel something for her, and just as clear that she cares for you. Don’t you think that’s worth exploring further?”
He had. He’d been very tempted to. Right up until…
“You don’t get it,” Brad said softly. “It’s only chance that Lyrian and I even ended up together. She nearly ended up with my brother.”
“Sounds like a fortuitous chance to me,” Karla said pointedly.
Brad just stared at her. How could she be so laid back about it?
“Dragons see sex very differently than us humans,” Karla said softly. “How could they not, when they need it to heal? When they bond for life if they sleep with someone three times? There’s no in between for them. It’s either casual sex, or deadly serious.”
Brad hadn’t quite thought about it like that before, and the implications took his breath away. He had known both those facts, but he hadn’t quite put them together like that before.
Of course dragons took casual sex as a matter of course. In a strange way, it was similar to the way he took having access to a good hospital as a matter of course. He gave a brief laugh.
There was just one problem with that. “She could have told me,” he said softly.
Karla shrugged. “As soon as you touched her, you both would have been consumed by the Mesmer bond, that isn’t the time for talking. And trust me, talking is the last thing on your mind,” she said wryly.
She gave him a conspiratorial wink, as though she expected him to know what she was talking about. The trouble was, Brad didn’t. “I wasn’t the one who woke Lyrian. My uncle was. Apparently he was too old to complete the ritual for her, so he sent for my brother. When he wasn’t available, he called me.”
“Oh.” Karla stared at him for a moment.
She didn’t have an answer for that one. Brad might have felt smug, except he was a little disappointed. He wouldn’t have any objection to someone convincing him to give Lyrian another chance.
Karla wasn’t silent for long. “Good,” she said briskly. “That means your relationship wasn’t overshadowed by the intense emotions of the Mesmer bond. You know what you feel for Lyrian is true.”
Brad frowned. “What do you mean?”
“When Taurian and I met, I woke him without having any idea of the bond, or that it was what made me feel this intense attraction to him. When he explained to me, I thought everything I was feeling was a result of the Mesmer bond. It took me quite a while to accept that it was real.”
Brad could see how that could be a problem. “Sounds like you had a pretty rough start too.”
Karla shrugged. “Loving a dragon isn’t easy. But it is worth it.”
Brad bit back a sigh. He was sure it was. But that didn’t change anything. “It’s hard enough without the lies.”
Karla raised an eyebrow. “And, of course, you told her all about the fact that you had a job back in America you couldn’t leave?”
“Of course I did,” Brad said flatly. He had no reason to doubt his own honesty in this situation. He never hid his commitment to his work.
“Before you slept together the first time?”
“Well…” Brad stammered. It had all happened too fast. He wasn’t sure what he’d told Lyrian then. Her alluring scent, her bright, vivid personality, her sweet curves, they all blurred together, blotting out any other memories. “Well I told her about my commitments long before she told me she was a dragon.”
That, at least, he was sure of.
“But not straight away,” Karla persisted.
“Maybe not. But I don’t see what that matters. At that stage, I had no idea that things would go so far, or that I’d feel so strongly about her. And I definitely had no idea we’d have a child together.”
“And when did you start to figure out this was more than a casual fling?” Karla asked. Her eyes were fixed on him, as though waiting for him to incriminate himself.
Brad wasn’t sure how. He considered her question for a moment, finding the idea interesting enough that he answered honestly. “At first I wasn’t thinking like that at all. I was…” he gave a rueful laugh… “I was pretty much just infatuated. I couldn’t think of anything but her.”
He hadn’t even been thinking about getting back to the hospital, a first for him. “It wasn’t until it was nearly time for me to leave that I realised how much I didn’t want to leave her. I asked her to come with me, but she shut me out and refused to talk.”
He knew why now, but he hadn’t understood it at all then. Frustration welled up in him. “If she’d told me then, I might have understood.”
“Would it have made any difference?” Karla asked softly.
“Of course it would have. It wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much.”
“But you still would have left.”
“Well…” Brad heaved a sigh. There was no denying the truth. “Yes, I still would have left.”
“Then can you see why Lyrian couldn’t tell you?” Karla asked softly. “It’s not even just her secret to tell. Her clan has relied on her keeping that secret to keep them safe all these years. She couldn’t give it up for someone who was planning on leaving.”
Brad stared at her, wanting to keep arguing. Wanting to deny the truth right in front of him. Surely there was some way this could have been different? Some way Lyrian could have told him the truth, and for it to have all worked out perfectly.
But he knew there wasn’t a way, anymore than there was a way that they could make this relationship work.
Brad heaved a sigh, his whole body relaxing from a tension he hadn’t even realised he was feeling. There were still many problems getting in the way of a relationship with Lyrian, but at least some of the hurt he’d been carrying had eased. He hadn’t realised how affected he’d been by her rejection.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “She couldn’t have told me. Not then.”
And she couldn’t have told him later, because he wasn’t there. That one, at least, had been his fault as much as hers.
Karla put a hand on his arm. “Don’t beat yourself up too much. There’s still time to sort it out.”
Brad shook his head. Though his heart was more at peace now, he still didn’t see any way he could make things work. His and Lyrian’s lives were too different, too far apart, for them to share anything more than what they had.
He wasn’t sure how he could possibly make Karla understand that though.
Before he could even consider the possibility, the quiet in the room was interrupted by a sound overhead. A dull thunk, thunk, its sound muffled a little by the thick walls of rock.
Brad stared at Karla, his heart in his mouth. Was that what he thought it was? The fear in Karla’s wide eyes said she was as concerned as he was.
Both of them rushed out of the room and back to the main cave.
“What’s that sound?” one of the dragons asked as they burst into the cave just as Lyrian, Taurian, and Verrian arrived from another entrance.
“It’s a helicopter,” Karla said tightly. “Flying over the lair. But don’t worry, they can’t see us in here.” She looked at Taurian, as though confirming that.
Her mate nodded, though he looked far from convinced.
Everyone was silent, listening to the sound pass over head. Holding their breath, waiting for it to fade into the distance.
Except it didn’t. It grew fainter, then louder as it came around again.
Brad’s heart pounded in his chest. If only the lair had a window he could look out. Had the helicopter seen something, or were they just flying a search pattern? What could they possibly have seen? Karla was right, there was no sign of the lair from above.
But the helicopter sounded like it was hovering directly overhead.
Then the sound grew louder, as it moved down almost directly in front of the lair.
The explanation hit Brad with a sickening thud.
“The cars,” he said hollowly. “The ute, and Nate’s four-wheel drive. They’re parked right in front of the lair.”
Karla’s face paled. Even Taurian and Verrian looked a little shaken.
Taurian recovered quickly. “It may be unusual for cars to be out here, but surely not unheard of. We’ve seen at least two groups of tourists drive out here to look at the cliffs since we returned. They are rather spectacular.”
“Yeah, but they’re going to recognise my car,” Brad said guiltily. “The police have pulled me over a couple of times, once looking for Lisa,” he nodded in her direction, “and once to ask why it was all burnt. Now they know about the dragons, they’re going to realise there’s a connection.”
The sound of the helicopter outside changed note for a few moments, before stopping altogether.
Everyone was silent, as though afraid any noise they made could be heard by those who had landed below.
Which was unlikely. They were a reasonable distance away, and several feet of rock stood between them and the occupants of the helicopter. There was little chance of the sound carrying, as evidenced by the fact they couldn’t hear anything below now that the rotors had stopped.
“What are we going to do?” Brad asked quietly.
“Shh.” Taurian held up a hand.
Was he really so worried they might be heard? Brad had spoken very quietly.
Karla drew him aside. “Dragon hearing is a lot better than ours,” she said in a low voice. “They’re trying to listen to what’s being said.”
“Oh.” That hadn’t even occurred to Brad. He waited, silently, wishing he could hear what was being said as well.
“Looks like we could be stuck here for a while,” Taurian said, his voice grim. “They’re calling for more humans and planning a search.” He turned to Brad. “Sounds like they’re looking for you.”
“For me?” Brad’s voice came out in a squeak. His heartrate sped up. That was not good. Not good at all.
How long were the police going to search? How long would they stay here?
“Can they find us up here?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Taurian and Verrian looked concerned. They glanced around the room, and Brad saw many other concerned dragon faces.
“Of course they can’t,” Taurian said, his voice sure and confident.
Brad suspected his confidence was put on, a show for the audience watching him. It didn’t make him feel any better.
His heart began to thud in his chest. If the police found them, he was going to be in trouble. The last thing he needed was a police record.
And his concerns were small compared to those of the dragons around him. To Lyrian, and their daughter, Anarian.
If the police found them, who knew what would happen to them.
Brad’s mouth was dry, and he struggled to swallow.
He’d thought Lyrian would be safe once she was back with her clan, but it appeared the problems had just followed them.
How was he going to keep them safe now?