Darren and Kelly drove in a comfortable silence as he headed toward the gully where he had his encounter with the dragon shifters. He hadn’t come back since he had gotten Matthew killed. It was a very difficult thing for him to face, and he was extremely ashamed of himself because of what had happened.
Of course, the human didn’t know that. All she knew was there was a place she needed to avoid. And this was most definitely the highest on the list. This area was still in debate, and the dragon shifters had a tendency to patrol here. They were uncompromising, and wanted to do everything within their power to claim this piece of land for themselves.
It didn’t matter who they hurt in order to do it. They believed that the shifter magics in between the mountains belonged to them, and there were definitely many relics that had been mixed up in the area. Some were ancient dragon shifter relics and others were ancient bear shifter relics. They had come to an agreement, peacefully, hundreds of years ago. But, now, as both races became more desperate to return to their home dimension, things were starting to get a little messier.
“This place is beautiful,” Kelly said quietly, as Darren led her out of the car and down the steep slope of the mountain.
Darren frowned. He had believed that to be true as well, before the incident had occurred. Now, though, all he could see was pain. Pain in every little crevice of the place. Almost as if Matthew’s ghost was haunting him. Reminding him of all the ways he had gone wrong. How stupid he had been to believe he knew everything. He had gotten the poor boy killed. That was something he would never forgive himself for, and something he doubted anybody else would forgive him for either.
“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked softly, standing in front of him and gazing into his eyes, her own eyes concerned. “Are you all right?”
Darren cast his eyes to the ground. “This place is full of bad memories for me. So, I thought I would bring you here first. It is the worst of all of them. This is the turf where the dragons are currently trying to take over. They want this place. They want to be able to harness the magic here. And I did my best to defend it.”
“Something happened here,” Kelly said quietly, looking up at Darren. Her eyes were gentle and full of understanding, and he felt his chest tightened.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “The worst day of my life happened here.”
Kelly frowned, and gripped Darren’s hand in her own. He looked down at it surprised, and then looked her in the eye. This was strange. But it was good.
“You can tell me if you want to, but I will not push you. I know how these things can be.”
“I am not sure you could,” Darren said with a soft laugh. “When I was a younger man, I made a bad choice. I put a man in danger, and it cost him his life. I was foolish, and reckless, and stubborn. And I don’t think I could ever forgive myself for it. That is the reason why it is so hard for me to find a mate on this mountain. And not only that, but I am sure, as sure as I have ever been, that I was fated to be with you.”
Darren looked at Kelly, his mouth dry as he allowed the words to sink in. She looked at him with a strange gleam in her eye, and then looked down at the ground. Darren pulled her forward and embraced her tightly. She melted against him, and they stood like that for a few moments. It was a strange sort of intimacy, unlike anything Darren had ever experienced before. It gave him the same feeling that seeing her face in the newspaper had given him. And then, the same feeling that answering her letter and communicating for the first time in writing had given him.
Now, they were in person, and they were testing the resolve of their relationship this way. It was an incredibly powerful experience, especially to have shared in the most difficult area of the mountain for him to come to. When they pulled away from the embrace, Kelly was smiling at him.
“So, I shouldn’t come here by myself then,” she said quietly.
“No, you shouldn’t come here by yourself. And it would probably be better if we didn’t come here at all in general. I just really hate it here. It’s a bad place.”
“The dragons seem to think that it’s a great place. That’s why they are here.”
Darren chuckled. She had him there. “Yes, they do seem to think they are going to gain an advantage by taking this area over. Just remember, this is not a good place for you to be. If they see us here, they will see us together, and they will target you.”
“I know you said that, but why would you have brought me here if they are just going to target me?”
“Because I guess I wanted to share this with you. They’re going to find out about you one way or another. Sooner, probably, rather than later. They have spies everywhere. But I just need you to know that this is not a safe place. It’s not safe physically, and for me, it’s not even safe emotionally.”
“Show me the next place,” Kelly said, squeezing Darren’s hand in hers. “I would love to see anything you have to show me.”
Darren squeezed her hand and smiled. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that.”
He drove her all around the mountain, showing her all of the places she had to be wary of. There were only a few really major spots, but they were far apart, and it took a while to travel. She had said she wanted to see the bad places first. By the time he was ready to take her to the good places, it was near evening. He was getting hungry, and glanced over at Kelly.
“Would you like to eat before we see any more?” Darren asked.
Kelly considered this. “I don’t know,” she said. “How much longer will we be out? Maybe I could make you something to eat when we get home.”
Darren warmed at the words. He liked the thought of Kelly considering his home her home as well. It meant he was doing a good job to welcome her.
“That would be fine with me,” he said. “As long as you are okay for now.”
“Yes,” Kelly said with a smile. “I am okay for now.”
Darren nodded, and they returned to his vehicle. He started the engine, and soon, they were rolling up the mountain, toward one of his favorite places.
“Are you okay with high altitudes?” Darren asked. “I keep gum in the glove compartment.”
“Thanks,” Kelly said softly. She took a piece out. “I’ll be okay with something to chew on. I haven’t been very many places.”
“I want to show you the best places to go. They’re right on this mountain.”
Kelly smiled at the thought and gazed into Darren’s eyes.
“I’d love to see what you consider the best places to go.”
“We’re almost there.”
They drove up the mountain a while, until they were nearly at the top. Darren finally brought the car to a stop and paused briefly before turning to Kelly.
“This is a really understated place. Most people don’t come here.”
“Why?” Kelly asked softly.
“They don’t know about it. Unless I’ve shown them. But they don’t come usually. They know the meaning of this place.”
“Meaning?”
“Yes. Come with me and I will show you. It will be easier that way.”
Kelly nodded and followed Darren out of the car. They walked quietly down an overgrown path before, finally, Darren stopped. “To the right is where I was born,” he said quietly, turning to face the ruins of a stone enclave. Kelly stepped forward, a small gasp pitching in her throat. It looked as if it had once been a huge, beautiful place. But, somehow, it had been destroyed.
“What happened to it here?” she asked, running a finger along a stone slab.
Darren frowned. “Well,” he said slowly. “The dragon shifters have always had it in for my family. We come from a very prominent gene pool. The rumor is that we are directly descended from some of the shifter royalty in our own dimension. But, that is just rumor. All of us are descended from someone important somewhere along the way, otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”
Kelly considered this briefly. “So, you mean they wanted to hurt you and your family because of your lineage?” she asked finally.
Darren shrugged his shoulders. “They are threatened by our power. They know we are the only ones who pose any threat to their plans. And their plans, although sometimes harmless, can also mean the end of my kind as we know it. Some dragons are very domineering. They can become tyrants very easily. They believe their kind are the only kind that have any genuine emotion or valid thoughts and feelings about things. They want to wipe out anybody who challenges those ideas. And the bear shifters are very different when it comes to philosophy. We do not always see eye to eye. Especially when it comes to things like territory. This war between us does not have to exist, and yet, it does. And it continues to. They do it for themselves, not for the greater good. Not for a common cause. It is tyrannical and wrong. And it cost me a lot during my life. One of those things being my family.”
Kelly gasped softly at the revelation and stared at the ruins of Darren’s family home. It seemed as if the dragon shifters were much crueler than she had ever been informed. Now, though, she could see the path of their destruction for herself, and wondered why they were even allowed on Earth at all.
“Not all dragon shifters are tyrants,” Darren said, as if he could sense what she was thinking now. “No, actually many of them are very kind. But those who seek power do so with ruthless intentions at heart, and they do not surrender it without a fight. Those are the dragon shifters that are of concern. What is not of concern are those who try to seek out a peaceful life and do not get involved in the war. Those are a far greater number. But when we have to deal with the tyrant, we have to deal firmly. And these tyrants want to control Oak Mountain. They want the power that was vested here for the bear shifters when our worlds collapsed. That is something we cannot allow. We cannot abide by it.
“This is a sacred place. I’m showing you this because it means everything to me. And not only that, but it is the place of power and beauty. Come, and I will show you why.”
Darren led Kelly away from the ruins and deeper into the forest. She followed quietly, obviously deep in thought.
Darren pushed through the foliage and stepped out onto a ledge. He held his arm out to sturdy Kelly, so she wouldn’t fall as they stood out over the mountain.
What they saw took her breath away, and she gasped in surprise, gripping Darren’s arm tightly in her hand. They were at a peak, overlooking a great valley. There were other mountains in the distance, mountains where the dragon shifters made their homes. Beyond that, far off in the distance, up in the sky, was a shimmering wave in the sky. It was unlike anything Kelly had ever seen before, and she gazed at it in disbelief before turning her eyes back onto Darren.
“What is that?” she asked, her voice hushed.
“That is where we came from. The bear shifters. The dragon shifters. The wolf shifters. All of this came from this portal. And we have all been trying to open it. Each of us has our own doorway back home, and each of us is doing our best to find our way back. That is why the dragon shifters are trying so desperately to invade Oak Mountain. They believe that the missing link to obtaining the final piece to their portal lives here. But if they steal the relics that they believe are rightfully theirs, the bear shifters will lose their power and all chance of returning back to our own dimension.”
Kelly tried to get all of this information straight in her mind. It was a strange revelation, to suddenly realize that all the bear shifters on Earth really did have a place to go. And that place wasn’t so far off as most of the humans seemed to believe. It was right here, wavering in the sky above them. All. Visible, only to the select few who were aware of the portal’s presence. And now, she was one of those select few. It was an incredible honor, and also, somewhat terrifying. She wanted so badly to be able to be a part of this incredible world. And, in fact, she had almost been able to imagine that she was. When she saw the portal in the sky, some part of her seemed to sense, immediately, exactly what it was and the significance of its presence there.
“How does it make you feel?” Darren asked, turning to look at Kelly. Kelly turned to face him, her heart pounding in her chest. “It feels familiar, somehow,” she said quietly.
Darren’s eyes darkened and he suddenly felt the bear within him awakening. He stepped close to Kelly, almost as if to test her scent, and then pulled away, surprised by what he found there. “You’re not entirely human, are you?”
Kelly frowned. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m human. I have human parents and the human town.”
“You said you were adopted,” Darren said, looking at her, his eyes dark. “I think you may have shifter ancestry within you.”
Kelly swallowed hard. She studied Darren, her face difficult to read. “I’m not sure if that is possible. I don’t think I could be a shifter. I have always been a human. No shifter has ever thought I was a shifter. I don’t act like one, I don’t have the same skills and abilities. It doesn’t make any sense that this would even happen.”
“You told me that you were adopted,” Darren said. “You told me that you didn’t know your parents. You knew that you were different. You know that you and the other humans aren’t the same. There is something different about you. And something very beautiful. Something I want. Something that I want to claim as my own. I want you.”
His eyes flashed darkly, and all of the dark, repressed, hidden desires he’d had for the woman resurfaced.
“I want you too,” Kelly said, looking into his eyes.
Suddenly, their bodies were pressed together, and Darren was holding her close, lifting her easily in his strong arms and planting an earth-shattering kiss on her lips. She moaned softly into his mouth, the feeling of his tongue against hers sending thrills through her body. Darren held her tightly. He had never felt anything better than this woman against him. He wanted the feeling to last.
He led her gently backward, until her back was pressed against a tree. He kissed her deeply again and then pulled away, speaking gently to her. “Have you ever made love before?” he asked.
Kelly’s entire body shuddered at the question, and she shook her head. “I’ve had sex. But I don’t think I’ve ever been with anybody I care a lot about.”
“I care a lot about you,” Darren said, his face entirely serious. Somehow, she believed him. She had no inclination toward doubt. Not with this man. He was as serious as they came.
“I care about you too,” she said, her voice a hushed whispered.
Suddenly, Darren’s lips were on hers again, and she was moaning softly in rapture as she felt his body surround her completely. He was a big, strong man, and she felt fragile and delicate in his arms. He dropped tender fervent kisses against her neck. She moaned deeply in pleasure as he did so, and he held her close. He had never experienced anything quite as intense as his attraction to Kelly, and now that they were together, he wanted nothing more than to release his full power on her completely.
But she was a tender and delicate woman, and he would have to hold back. She couldn’t be taken by force. She was special. He didn’t want to hurt her. Even if she was part bear shifter, there was no telling just how different their bodies may be. He would have to go easy. No matter how much anguish that put him in.