Outer rim of Valdier - Centuries later:

“Are you sure we were supposed to return here?” Barrack asked, pacing back and forth in the engine room of their spaceship.

“You felt the pull as well. Our symbiots said this was where we were supposed to go,” Brogan’s muffled voice snapped in irritation. “Hand me the splicer.”

Barrack grimaced and looked through the array of tools spread out across the floor. Currently, he could only see half of his brother’s body. The top half was under the power console that controlled the main engines.

“I thought you already repaired this,” Barrack commented, handing Brogan the splicer.

“I did. The damn part that two-faced Tiliqua sold to me was faulty. I knew I should have looked somewhere else. Those two-headed bastards are always looking to make a quick credit,” Brogan grumbled.

“I told….” Barrack started to say before he clamped his lips tightly together when Brogan slid out from under the console and shot him a heated glare.

“Not one word or I’ll let you repair it this time,” Brogan threatened.

Barrack gave his brother a sour look. “You know I hate working on machines. They hate me too,” he retorted.

Brogan snorted. “’Hate’ is a really mild version of the word I would use to describe you and anything to do with this spaceship,” he replied before pulling himself back under the console.

“I can’t believe after all this time, we are finally going to meet our true mate,” Barrack said, lowering himself down until he was sitting on the floor next to his brother.

“What you really mean is you can’t believe my dragon and I have kept our heads together this long without losing it,” Brogan said.

Barrack chuckled. “That too,” he admitted, leaning his head back. “What do you think she is like? Is she from our village or the city? Do you really think that she can handle both of us? Goddess! Just the thought of her between us makes me hard.”

Brogan listened as his older brother, by mere minutes, speculated about their true mate. He could understand Barrack’s excitement. If his brother’s dragon was bouncing around inside him like his was, then it was amazing that they had not shifted and destroyed their transport ship by now.

The image he kept close to his heart nearly choked him. Despite the passage of time, the image and the softly spoken names of those who would guide him and his brother to their true mate were as clear as when he had received them. They were the only things that had kept him sane.

Not that I was all that sane to start with, he thought, thinking of the long scars that ran down the side of his face and neck. He’d kept them deliberately to remind himself of the dangers he and his brother faced if they weren’t careful.

The scars were the result of a fight he had with a group of youths from the village. They had separated him from his brother and his symbiot in the hope of killing him. The youths had listened to the fears of their parents. He hadn’t understood at the time that his sometimes volatile temper had fed into their fear.

He had broken free and escaped, but not before he was injured. Their father had decided against punishing the youths, fearing it would cause more attacks. Instead, he had cautioned Brogan and Barrack to never be caught alone again or without their symbiots.

Brogan had a tighter grip on his control now, because of her. He focused on his mental image of their mate’s eyes, her sun-kissed, creamy mocha skin, her full lips, and her shoulder length black-brown hair streaked with gold. Throughout the years, he had clung to that image instead of the other one the Goddess had also shown him – the one of their mate lying peacefully upon the pristine white silk inside a small box, her life cut short when it had barely even begun. Two threads of life revealed – one when Delilah was older and one when she was a child. Only they had the power to change her path.

“She is beautiful,” he said.

“Tell me again,” Barrack ordered.

Brogan’s lips curved in wry amusement. If he had a credit for every time he had heard Barrack ask him that, they could have afforded a fleet of transports. He had tried to share the image, but nothing worked. It was strange. He could share everything else with Barrack except this.

“She has sun-kissed skin the color of the bark of the strongest trees in the forest, yet as smooth as the finest silk,” he began.

“Meaning she can handle the fiercest storms,” Barrack said.

“Yes. Her hair reaches just below her smooth shoulders where the dark strands are threaded with gold streaks,” Brogan continued, knowing what his brother would say next.

“The touch of the Goddess to guide us to her and let us know that she is ours,” Barrack replied with a sigh.

Brogan chuckled. “Yes,” he agreed.

He bit back another chuckle when he felt Barrack kick his foot. They’d had this discussion a million times before, yet Barrack was acting as if it was the first time. He winced when Barrack hit his leg.

“Ouch! Be careful, my leg is still sore,” he stated.

Barrack grunted. “It wouldn’t be if you’d let your symbiot run over you again. You should have known there would be another mercenary hiding behind the counter,” he stated.

“It’s still mad at me for refusing to wear my armor. Is that why you let me go in first, so that I would get the knife in the thigh instead of you?” Brogan demanded, wincing when he scraped his knuckles on the edge of the console. “Why do they make these panels so damn small? Do they think only the Tiliqua work on these things?”

“Probably…. Tell me about her lips,” Barrack said.

Brogan finished splicing the wires together and pulled himself out from under the console. He sat up and laid the splicer next to the rest of his tools. He gave his symbiot a rueful smile when the gold creature trotted into the room.

He lifted his bleeding hand. The symbiot snorted, but melted. Warmth surrounded his hand, healing his new cut before moving up his arm and down his body, repairing the bruises and the deep cut on his thigh, which he had sealed as best he could with a portable medical kit.

“Her lips were made for us. They are full and lush while her eyes are dark and inviting. They glitter with determination and amusement. She loves to laugh,” Brogan said, leaning his head against the edge of the console and breathing a sigh of relief as the dull ache in his thigh faded. “Her breasts….”

“Her breasts were made to fit in our hands,” Barrack finished, lifting his hands and studying his palms. “I wonder if she will mind that my hands are rough.”

Brogan raised an eyebrow at that comment. “Don’t get all regal on me. I doubt our mate expects to meet nobility,” he dryly stated.

Barrack shot him an exasperated look, then rolled to his feet. Brogan grinned at Barrack when his brother shook his head at him.

“I don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about being mistaken for nobility,” Barrack stated, “but we are wealthy in our own right. We will have enough to build our mate a home anywhere she wishes, and we will buy her gowns – which, of course, we’ll rip off her luscious body – and then we’ll buy her more gowns and anything else she desires.”

“Why buy her gowns to rip off when we could just ask her to go naked?” Brogan asked, rising to his feet and collecting his tools. “My dragon would be happy if she remained in her dragon form for at least a century!”

“We could ask her about that,” Barrack agreed with a grin. “She could either remain naked or in her dragon form. Either would be acceptable.”

“I wonder if…,” Brogan started to say before he shook his head.

“You wonder what?” Barrack asked, helping Brogan put the tools back in the storage cabinet.

Brogan paused and looked at his brother. “I wonder how she will react when she meets us,” he said.

“She will love us at first sight,” Barrack said with confidence before he chuckled and slapped Brogan’s shoulder, reminding him of another bruise he forgot about. Brogan muttered a silent thank you to his symbiot when the creature moved over the tender spot. As he took the last of the tools from Barrack, the memory of their mate’s determined eyes flashed through his mind. Brogan wasn’t quite as confident as his brother about their reception. He wasn’t so sure what she had been looking at in the glimpse of her that the Goddess had given, but something told him that he and Barrack didn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever had put that look in her eyes.

* * *

Earth: Alleghany County, NC - Current Day:

“DeWayne Davis, you’d better get your butt out of here before I load it full of lead,” Delilah Rosewater swore, pointing the empty shotgun at the small-town lawyer from West Jefferson.

“Now, Delilah, you can’t go pointing guns at people,” DeWayne sputtered defensively as he raised his hands and stumbled back down the uneven steps of the large wooden farmhouse. “I’ve got legitimate business here.”

Delilah nodded at the small sign nailed to the railing of the front porch. “For a lawyer, you sure don’t know how to read very well. That sign says ‘No Soliciting’. That means you, DeWayne,” she said, taking another step across the worn front porch.

“I’ve been authorized to make you an offer, Delilah. I know how much this house and property means to you, which is why I’m working to get you a good deal,” DeWayne explained, stumbling on the uneven stone walkway at the bottom of the steps.

“I’m not interested in selling. I don’t owe nobody nothing, – and the fact that you’ve got me mad enough to be talking like I don’t have a college education has just pissed me off even more. I don’t have time for this. Now, get in your car, DeWayne, and get off my property,” Delilah demanded.

DeWayne clenched his free hand while his other gripped the leather satchel. He glared up at where she was standing on the porch, and she knew from the way his jaw tightened that he wasn’t going to go this time without having his say. For once, she wished she had actually loaded her grandfather’s old shotgun.

“Mountain View Properties wants to make an offer on your property. Mr. Lister is willing to pay you twice the amount it’s worth, Delilah. I could write you a check by the end of the week if you agree,” DeWayne said, reaching into his worn, brown leather satchel.

“I tell you what, DeWayne, if you take those papers and put them in my burn barrel on the way out, I won’t think about shooting you in the ass. For the last time, I’m not selling my grandparents’ property. Not now, not ever! You think I don’t know what it is really worth? They aren’t offering me a fraction of the value! All they want to do is cut down all the trees on the mountain and turn the meadow into a golf course. It… is… not… happening,” she snarled the last part slowly so he could understand once and for all that she wasn’t interested.

“Delilah, listen… I can make a counter offer. You know the price of land has been going up. Lots of city folks are buying property in the mountains nowadays. You’ve got a lot of valuable land just sitting here going to waste. The views – well, if this were in California, you’d be a millionaire a dozen times over. Just think about it! You’ve still got your folk’s old house in town. You could sell this place and move back there. Hell, you work at the library! It is practically across the street from that house,” DeWayne said.

Delilah’s mouth tightened. That was his second mistake, thinking he could sweet talk her with the promise of money. His first one was coming out here. His third one was taking a step closer.

“You’ve been warned, DeWayne. For such a big shot lawyer you sure don’t pay attention. I’m surprised that I have to remind you – again – that you should read the signs before you step on someone’s property, especially after they told you not to come back again after the last time you were here,” she commented, bracing the heavy gun against her side and reaching for the front door. “I’ll count to three before I open the door.”

Delilah smiled when she saw DeWayne’s eyes flash to the second sign under the first one. The huge red letters were written twice as big as the lettering of the No Soliciting sign. It said Beware of Dog. She smothered a chuckle when she saw him swallow and shove his papers back into his bag.

“One,” she called, gripping the doorknob.

“Delilah, the sheriff….,” he started to argue as he stepped backwards.

“Won’t do a thing, DeWayne, you know that. You’re trespassing. You passed a dozen posted signs on your way up here,” she said. “Two.”

“Come on, Delilah. At least listen to the offer,” DeWayne begged, his eyes moving between her and the door.

“Time's up. Three,” she warned, thankful she had propped the screen door open otherwise she would have been adding a replacement door to her budget. “Get him, Moonshine. Sic-em, Rum.”

“Aw shit! Delilah!” DeWayne cursed as he turned on his polished heel and took off clumsily toward his car.

Delilah stood back as the two massive Rottweilers tore through the open door, cleared the front porch in two steps, and leaped off. She crossed to the steps and watched as DeWayne yanked open the passenger door to his car and dove inside. She chuckled when she saw that he barely had time to pull the door closed before Moonshine jumped up, slamming the door shut the rest of the way. The loud and impressive snarls, foaming white slobber, and sharp rows of teeth sent DeWayne scrambling over the center console into the driver’s seat.

Afraid that DeWayne might hurt the dogs in his haste to depart, Delilah raised her fingers to her lips and loudly whistled. The two dogs’ heads immediately turned toward her. She raised her hand, giving the silent command to come.

From the porch of her grandparents’ house, she watched in satisfaction as DeWayne took off down the long, winding driveway. If he didn’t slow down, he would miss the curve about three quarters of the way down and end up in the creek.

She propped the gun up against the railing and waited, listening just in case she needed to call the sheriff. Breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t hear anything, she looked down at the dogs with a grin. They whined and wagged their little tails at her with affection.

“You two did very well. I think that deserves a treat,” she laughed, scratching each dog behind the ear. There was no need for DeWayne to know that the only thing these two would do was sit on him and lick him to death. “Come on. Daylight is burning, and I still have a lot of work to do,” she said, picking up the old shotgun, which she wasn’t even sure worked anymore, and heading for the front door.

She pulled the screen door closed behind her as she went inside. The house was still a bit musty from being closed up, so she left the front door partially open. She propped the shotgun next to the door and walked across through the foyer to the back of the house. Placing her hands on her hips, she looked at the work she had finished so far. It wasn’t bad, even if she said so herself.

She shivered as a draft of cold air swept through the house. She had left the kitchen and mudroom doors open to get a cross ventilation. The mudroom was currently a storage room for most of the items from the kitchen she was renovating.

Some people would call her crazy for rebuilding a house that should have been torn down forty years ago, but by the time she was done, city folks would pay her a fortune for a retreat like this from their hectic lives. She honestly didn’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion, though, since she didn’t plan on selling the house or the property. This was her heritage, and she was going to keep it. Hopefully one day, she could pass the house and land on to her kids.

“If I ever have any,” she grumbled under her breath as she pulled on the long rubber gloves and got back to work.

* * *

Late that night, Delilah was stiff, sore, and beyond exhausted, but she felt good. All the kitchen cabinets were sanded and prepped for a nice coat of varnish. The house had been breathtaking when she was little. Her grandparents had kept it immaculate. After their death, her parents had tried to keep it up, but between the lack of money and their health, the house was eventually boarded up.

One thing Delilah had always been thankful for was her mother’s insistance that the house and property would be passed down to her. For the past year, she had been working on it. Her job as the county librarian paid her an adequate amount if she watched her budget.

She had kept her dad’s old truck. It was old enough that she could repair most of the stuff on it without having to hook it up to a computer like the newer trucks. The property and her grandparents’ old house, along with the house in town, were paid for. Her mom had left her a small life insurance policy that she had never touched. It wasn’t much, but twenty thousand dollars was a nice rainy day fund.

Life is good - for the most part, she thought with a sigh.

She sat wrapped up in a thick throw on the front porch swing, sipping hot chocolate, and gently swaying back and forth with both dogs by her feet. All around her, fireflies twinkled in the trees. With all the lights off inside the house and no street lights, the night was so dark that without the full moon she wouldn’t have been able to see her hand in front of her face.

Leaning her head back, she listened to the lonesome howl of a coyote. She wasn’t worried about the coyotes or bears. The two dogs would give her warning as well as scare away any critters that tried to get too close.

“Well, give me another six months, and I think the house will be like new – for a hundred-year-old house,” Delilah wearily chuckled and then let out another sigh. “I need to get some sleep, but I don’t want to.”

She looked down at Rum when he raised his head and whined. The dogs helped, but they couldn’t protect her from the nightmares that were plaguing her dreams night after night with growing intensity.

She twisted her lips in sardonic amusement. Well, not all of her dreams were nightmares – as long as she didn’t mind the fact that there were two very hot, sexy, and extremely horny guys in them. She shook her head. She really should quit reading those romance novels the ladies in town kept donating and start reading up on things like how to fix a fifty-year-old furnace so that she didn’t have to buy a new one. Of course, the romances were much more interesting to read. Hell, even a few of the men were hooked on the stories – for the action and adventure, not the romance, of course.

“Can you believe seventy-three-year-old Mr. Cooks has an eReader now?” she told Rum. “I wonder if the dreams will go away if I stop reading those books. What do you think?”

“Woof,” Rum responded.

Moonshine stood up, whined, and nudged her hand. Delilah laughed and shook her head. It was past their bedtime. The dogs were funny. They had routines, and bedtime was at ten o’clock. If she was late, they would bug her until she gave in.

She gripped the blanket around her and rose from the swing. Walking across the porch, she tested a spongy board under her foot with a grimace before she continued to the front door. Opening the screen door, she pushed open the front door and waited for the dogs to enter. She followed them, closing the screen door and hooking it before she closed and locked the front door behind her.

She followed the dogs up the narrow stairs to the second level and down the hall to the master bedroom. Stepping inside, she smiled at her concession to modern times – a new bed that was big enough for her, Moonshine, and Rum. She had decided on a King size bed after discovering that a full size just wasn’t big enough, given that the two dogs tended to forget that it was her bed, not just theirs.

“Oh, no! You two are not stretching out on my side. You have your comforter on your side of the bed. The other side is my side. Move your big asses over,” she ordered as she headed to the bathroom.

“I’m soaking tonight. You two don’t get into anything and stay out of the bathroom,” she playfully ordered.

Moonshine mouthed off. She wasn’t sure if it was because she banned him from her side of the bed or the bathroom, but the bathroom order was necessary, as she’d discovered when the two boneheads had tried to climb into the claw foot tub with her before she’d started issuing common sense mandates. The one and only time it had happened had been an uncomfortable, very wet and extremely messy incident. It was definitely not something she was eager to repeat.

Grabbing her nightgown and a pair of panties from the small suitcase she brought with her, she headed for the bathroom. Turning on the water, she breathed a sigh of pleasure as the hot water filled the large tub. She thought back to the renovations on the house.

After making sure the house’s foundation and outside structure were in good shape, she had started on the roof and worked her way down. She had installed the new metal roof with the help of a couple of friends from town. The good thing about being the local librarian was that she knew most of the women in town, who knew most of the men. A few carefully shared comments and she had a dozen healthy men helping her one weekend.

There had been numerous strapping teenagers, a couple of fathers – to watch the strapping teenagers, one or two single brothers with matchmaking sisters, and three old-timers who came to oversee the entire project. Of course, that meant the women had to come and feed the men, which led to the rebuilding of the old corn crib and Model-T sheds, repairs to the porches and railings, and the removal of the old outhouse and chicken coop. The teenagers had handled the bonfire that followed.

It had been like the old days when the residents would get together to raise a house or barn. There had been a steady stream of visitors every weekend for the last six months. Some people stopped by to check in on her and make sure that she hadn’t fallen off a ladder, while others stopped by in the hope of getting her to go out on a date with them – including DeWayne.

She shook her head, then pinned up her hair, so that it wouldn’t get wet. Removing her clothes, she tossed them into the basket. She leaned over, turned off the water, then placed the towel within easy reach. She tested the water with her toes before she stepped into the steaming water.

“Oh yes,” she moaned as she lowered herself into the tub.

She sank down, leaned back against the tub, and stretched out her legs, loving the fact that she could. Hanging her arms over the sides so that she didn’t sink below the water, she sighed and looked up at the ceiling as the heat worked its magic on her sore muscles.

“Now, if I can just sleep without the dreams,” she murmured, closing her eyes and trying to relax.

Her dreams were divided into two groups: erotic annoyances and terrifying nightmares. Out of the two, she preferred the first. Because the same dreams were occurring over and over every night, she had resorted to reading everything she could get her hands on in the library about the meaning of dreams. When that failed to solve the problem, she had driven to Boone to see a psychologist.

She should have saved herself the money. Purchasing something for the house would have been a helluva lot more useful. First, the psychologist wanted to know what medications she was taking and if she was doing drugs – no. Then, the doc had asked about her recent or current relationships. Delilah had laughed at that one – none. Then, came the hang-ups about family – nope, nada. Yes, her parents had died young, but they had always been a loving family. Her dad had worked too much, but he’d had a great sense of humor and he’d loved her mom to distraction. Her mom had one of those quirky personalities that everyone loved, especially kids during story hour at the library. The most unusual fact about her family may have been that her dad was black while her mom was white – and no, Delilah didn’t have any hang-ups about that either. It was life. Her parents had adored each other as much as they had adored her. Who could have a problem with that?

Delilah wondered if that was why she had accepted relatively easily that their deaths had happened so close together. Her dad had worked in the coal mines of Virginia and Kentucky, and he had suffered the effects of black lung as well as smoking too much. Her mom had died from undiagnosed pneumonia a few months after her father died, but Delilah thought if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Her father’s death had truly sucked the life out of her mother.

Of course, at first, Delilah had been heartbroken. It hadn’t been until she went through a box of love letters her mother had saved that she realized the extent of the intensely close relationship her parents had shared. Every day that her father was away, he had sent a letter to her mother. Sometimes he had written poems to her interspersed with what he had done that day. Reading them gave her an image of her father that she never would have had if her mother had not saved the letters.

The psychologist had become frustrated when none of the usual diagnoses fit Delilah. How did you make a connection between two sexy guys who looked like something out of a wrestling magazine, dragons, and golden shape-shifting creatures _– all of whom wanted to do things that gave her hot flashes far too early in life – with her parents’ deaths? When the psychologist couldn’t figure that one out, she focused on the terrifying dreams of herself dying.

She’d finally told the woman she agreed that the dream of dying could be connected with her parents’ sudden deaths. Delilah didn’t believe it for a second, but it had been the only way to shut the woman up and get out of her office before she charged for another hour of her totally useless time. Frustrated, Delilah had decided to try to solve the problem on her own.

“Focus, Delilah. Pick the dream apart and see where it might have a connection to something going on in your life,” she murmured, trying a technique that she’d read about in one of the books about dream therapy.

“I die younger than I am now, so it can’t be real,” she whispered, pulling up the image of her younger self lying in the bed.

She smiled when she turned her head and almost saw the other little girl sitting by her side, holding her hand. She curled her fingers around the side of the tub. Sara Wilson – her best friend and sister-of-the-heart. Sara had slipped into her bedroom after the doctor had told Delilah’s mom to keep everyone away.

“What’s wrong, Delilah? Are you sick like the other kids?” Sara asked.

Delilah tried to nod, but she was too tired. Her fingers twitched when Sara wrapped her small hand around hers. It was so hard to breathe and her chest hurt.

“I’ll tell them to let Auntie give you some medicine. These modern docs don’t know nothing about healing people. Auntie has herbs that will make you feel better. She is teaching me,” Sara whispered, afraid of being overheard.

“Don’t… leave… me,” Delilah pleaded, trying to draw enough air into her lungs. Her eyes closed and her fingers trembled. “I’m … scared, … Sara.”

“I won’t leave you,” Sara promised.

Delilah could feel tears slipping down her cheeks. She opened her eyes and blinked. Perhaps this wasn’t about her, but about Sara. Sitting up, she wrapped her arms around her bent legs. Sara had left when she was sixteen. They had kept in touch, sending emails back and forth. Sara had moved to Columbia a couple years ago, and told Delilah all about her studies and life there, but a little over a year ago, all correspondence had suddenly stopped – when Sara disappeared.

“Maybe I need to find her,” Delilah said, raising a wet hand to wipe her cheeks. “Damn it! Why didn’t I think of this before?”

Guilt washed through her. She had accepted the University and government’s findings that Sara was dead, but what if she wasn’t, and Sara was reaching out to her somehow? Delilah leaned forward and pulled the drain plug. She had immersed herself in the house renovations when she should have been devoting herself to finding her friend.

Cursing under her breath at her own selfishness, she rose from the tub and grabbed the towel. She had to go back to work tomorrow. She had no idea where to start, but she would figure it out. Hell, part of a librarian’s job was to do research. She would start looking tomorrow. She had plenty of resources at her fingertips.

She dried off and dressed in an oversized nightshirt that said ‘Bite me and I’ll bite back’ with a picture of a grinning Rottweiler on the front. Pulling off the hair clip, she ran her fingers through her hair. Confident that she was finally on the right track in resolving the issue of her dreams, she hung up the damp towel and walked into the bedroom before coming to an abrupt stop. She glared at the bed.

“Oh, hell no! I did not spend a small fortune for you damn dogs. Get your ass off my side,” she growled, stomping over to the bed where the two Rottweilers were sprawled with their heads on her pillow.