Dragon Bound

SIXTEEN

She stared at the gryphon. “What do you mean?”

“He’s downsizing. He’s decided to sell some businesses, and he’s making plans to either vastly reduce the size of his hoard and move it, or shit, I don’t know, maybe he’ll ditch it altogether. Says he wants to get rid of the ‘white noise.’ ” Graydon rubbed his forehead. “I guess maybe hell really does have a cold day now and then. Doesn’t sound like he’s quite right in the head, does it?”

Her eyes glittered wet. Looking alarmed, he reached out to pat her hand, then seemed to rethink the gesture.

He said, “I know he’s not a romantic guy. I mean having me just hand you your present and all. Even I know that was lame, but I think he’s tryin’. There’s even nice flowers on the table and shit . . .”

His voice trailed off as she just looked at him. He offered her the bottle. Her stomach gave another inexplicable lurch. She shook her head. She folded her napkin and whispered, “I need a friend to talk to.”

The gruff gryphon’s voice turned gentle. “What am I, chopped liver? You beat the crap out of me this afternoon. That pretty much makes us pals in my book.”

She picked up the necklace again, turning it so that it caught fire in the light. “I did not beat the crap out of you.”

“If you had one mean bone in your body, you could have,” Graydon told her. “Now Rune’s scouring the city for a Wing Ding expert for us to train with. We’re all gonna learn to go with the flow or whatever the fuck it is you said you did. Think we’ll look as pretty as you did doing it?”

“Not a chance,” she said, smiling as she looked at him sidelong.

His steady gray eyes smiled back. “That’s what I said too. Con, though. He thinks he’ll look like hot shit, but then, he always does. Guy spends an hour every morning getting his hair just so. I’m tellin’ you. Hair styling products for men? That’s just not right.”

She chuckled. A companionable silence fell between them. She played with the necklace while he sprawled in his chair and drank scotch.

“So,” the gryphon said at last, “tell Uncle Gray all about it. Dragos hurt your feelings or something?”

“Wow, that would be simple,” she said. “Been there, done that, going to do it again sometime soon, I imagine. He said he might be mating with me.”

“Oh,” said Graydon. “That.”

“Yes, that.” The words started tumbling out of her. “We’ve known each other a matter of days, and he’s taken over my life. He demands I trust him, claims that I’m his, like I’m some piece of property. He doesn’t even know what I am and it’s driving him crazy.”

“Well, none of us know that, cupcake. We can’t figure you out and you’re not inclined to talk about it.” Graydon drank some more.

“I have my reasons.” She shivered. “And I’m a half-breed. It’ll kill him if I can’t make a full change.”

“So you two talk about this and he walks out,” said Graydon. “Doesn’t sound quite right.”

“Well, no. He said I had to make up my mind about what I wanted fast, so he could try to let me go. Then he said he wasn’t sure he could. Then he left. Meanwhile there’s the Fae King to deal with, and this is all so strange.” She waved a hand in a gesture meant to include everything. “I barely know anybody here, and it seems like I’ve already stirred up hard feelings. Everything my mom taught me was to run and hide. This isn’t running and hiding. This is insanity.”

“Hey, don’t go all 90210 on me,” said Graydon. “Let’s pull back from the curlicues for a minute and untangle things. Urien has to be dealt with, and he’s a dangerous fact of life at the moment, but he’s not part of the real issue, is he?”

After a moment she shook her head.

“Okay. Now, who hates you? None of us do. You’re sure as hell a game changer, and I’ll admit it took us by surprise. We didn’t take kindly to the idea at first and some of the sentinels are still grumpy about it. But we’ll adjust. Changes happen. That’s not to say there won’t be others who’ll have issues if you mate with Dragos. He’s very powerful, financially, politically and magically, and I won’t lie to you. Court politics can get pretty spiky. You gotta know that’s part of the package.”

She narrowed her eyes on him, remembering the woman outside the gym. She described the woman to him. “That’s one of the sentinels, isn’t it? It looked like she’s got a real hate-on going for me.”

He tapped the tips of his blunt fingers against the bottle, frowning. “That’s Aryal, and yeah, she’s one of us. She doesn’t exactly hate you. Harpies just aren’t known for being real forgiving types. Give her time. She’ll come around.”

She nodded. “Tricks mentioned some hotheaded predators.”

He grinned. “Yeah, there’s a lean and hungry pride of Wyrlions in the corporate law division. They bring a comprehensive new meaning to the word ‘bitchy,’ but they have their place. If anybody gives you any trouble, all you gotta do is let me know and I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a wry look. She didn’t say it, but if she was going to make a go of living here, she would have to fight her own battles and carve out her own niche.

He said, “This might be hard, but it’s all simple at the same time. You know what it boils down to. Do you want Dragos or not? Do you want him bad enough to overcome what your mom taught you and let your guard down, to put up with all his shit, the Wyr Court, and deal whatever the future holds? Or do you want to run away and leave all this behind? That’s all you gotta figure out. The rest will work itself out over time.”

She tried to imagine running away and starting over. She could go south. She would be alone. She knew without ever discussing it that if she said good-bye to Dragos, there would be no second chance. She said, “It’s all happening so fast.”

“Often the Wyr mating bond does. I’ve known times when it has happened the moment two Wyr laid eyes on each other. Now, there were some bumpy roads.”

“Have you ever known of the mating bond to happen to one person and not the other?”

He blew out a breath. “That’s a tough one. It’s a lot trickier if a Wyr bonds with a non-Wyr like a human, since non-Wyrs don’t go through the same experience we do. As for Wyr mating, I remember once a couple hundred years ago it didn’t take right. At least I think. Were they going through the bonding process or were they just fucked-up? She killed herself when he wouldn’t have her.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “That’s awful.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What if I remain mortal?”

He shrugged. “Dragos doesn’t appear to be running away because of that. Will you deny yourself a mate and the chance of happiness just because you’re gonna die someday?”

“That’s different. I’m going to die one way or another if I can’t change. It just seems terrible to think that Dragos would die because of me.”

He hunched his shoulders and watched his hands as he turned the scotch bottle in circles. “There aren’t any guarantees in life. Just because some of us are exceptionally long-lived and call ourselves ‘immortal’ doesn’t mean we can’t be killed. I would jump at the chance to have a mate, mortal or otherwise. Most of us would, you know. We never expected it to happen to Dragos, but I bet you every last one of us is thinking what a lucky son of a bitch he is.”

They fell silent again. Then she slid her hand over to touch the back of his. “Thank you, Gray. You’re a good listener and a wise man.”

He took her hand and pressed a kiss against her fingers. “Shh,” he whispered over her hand, eyes crinkling. “Don’t tell anybody.”

She smiled at him. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She was tempted to change into gym clothes and spend an hour on a treadmill, but then tiredness swept over her. It had been another long day and the gryphons had already given her quite a workout before Dragos stopped them.

Over Graydon’s protests, she put the necklace back in the box, cleaned off the dining table, put the leftovers in the large stainless steel refrigerator and rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher. Then she decided to wait for Dragos’s return in the library. Rune came to join them as she browsed through the volumes.

She greeted him, picked an early history of the Wyr and curled up to read in a large leather armchair. The chair was the most battered piece of furniture in the room, the dark brown leather buttery-soft and bearing a faint but unmistakable familiar masculine scent. She could just imagine Dragos relaxing in this seat as he read his scientific journals. Rune and Graydon respected her unspoken desire for privacy and settled across the room to play chess.

After a while she let the book rest on her chest as she closed her eyes.

A gentle touch on her shoulder woke her. Rune squatted by her armchair, his eyes kind. She sagged back in the chair and yawned. “Time’s it?”

“After two,” he said. “You look beat. Why don’t you go to bed? Better yet, Dragos said he’d stay in telepathic range. You could call him back if you wanted.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to do that. He needed some space. He’s had a tough day. And I don’t want to go to bed without him.” Her eyes started to drift closed and she forced them open. “Unless you guys need to go to bed?”

He smiled. “We’re up until he gets back. Don’t worry about us; we’re fine.”

She nodded and felt soft warmth as he tucked a cashmere throw blanket around her. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Pia.”

He walked back to the chess table and Graydon. She closed her eyes again. Soon she was walking in a very old forest, breathing in its fresh loam scent. A small, pearly, luminescent dragon lay draped around her shoulders like a stole. She stroked a graceful sinuous leg, and the dragon lifted up his head to look at her with beautiful, dark violet blue eyes. She was full of emotion as she looked into his wide-open innocent gaze.

I love you, said the little dragon.

She kissed his delicate snout. I love you too, peanut.

She came full awake with a start and sat up, looking around. For a moment she felt disoriented and abandoned as she put her hand to her empty throat and shoulders.

Graydon and Rune watched her from across the room. Both men were wide-awake and alert. Graydon said, “What is it?”

She shook her head. “Just a dream.”

They stood. “What kind of dream?” Rune asked, eyes sharp.

She frowned at them, not wanting to share it. “Nothing happened. It was just a dream.”

They both looked toward the ceiling. “Dragos is back,” Graydon told her. “He’ll be right here.”

“Okay,” she said, hurt that Dragos hadn’t reached out to her telepathically and determined not to let it matter. Now was not the time to develop a thin skin. In fact, as long as she remained in the Tower she ought to jettison any delicate sensibilities she might have altogether.

Dragos entered and the atmosphere in the room turned electric. He looked invigorated. He glanced at the gryphons and jerked his chin toward the door, and they slipped out as he strode over and squatted in front of the armchair. She gave him a tentative smile as he leaned his forearms on the chair’s arms and regarded her. His gaze was moody, his mouth tight.

“It’s almost four A.M.,” he said. “If you wanted to avoid my bed that much, you should have crashed in one of the other rooms.”

Her smile vanished. She struggled to sit upright and pull the jewelry box out from under the open book. She threw the box at him. Impossible to miss at point-blank range. It smacked him in the chest.

“I was waiting up to thank you for the gift,” she snapped. “That you, oh, by the way, didn’t give me yourself. Move.”

He stayed crouched in front of her, eyes narrowed.

She stuck her face up to his, giving him a full-on glare. She bared her teeth. “I said move out of my way.”

He snatched her against his chest and drove his mouth down on hers. She struggled, managed to get one arm free and smacked him on the shoulder. He grabbed her by the back of the head to hold her still as he devoured her. She mmphed against his mouth and gave him another, weaker smack. He wedged her lips open and drove his tongue in deep.

Damn him! She wound her free arm around his neck and kissed him back furiously. All the electricity in the room shot into her body in one thunderous strike.

After a moment he eased up, turned gentler. She sucked his lower lip between her teeth and bit him hard.

He jerked back, gold eyes flaring. He touched his lip, looked at the smear of blood on his fingers, and his face creased with laughter. He said, “You liked me kissing you.”

She didn’t try to deny it. “Well, there’s a whole lot happening over here besides that. I’ve got quite a bit of angry still going on. Not that you asked. Did you come in here looking to pick a fight? How do you expect me to trust you when you act like such a pig?”

He didn’t like that and glared at her. Struck by the strength and ferocity of the expression, she stared at him. If she were meeting him for the first time and he looked at her like that, she would be spinning on her heel and on the run before you could say Kentucky Derby. How things had changed.

His hold loosened on her. He eased back on his heels. She straightened and inspected the open book that had gotten crushed between them. Some of the pages had gotten creased. She smoothed them out and then set the book on a nearby table. All the while she was focused on him crouching too close in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Her anger wasn’t so quick to die away just because he knew how to say the word “sorry.” But she didn’t want to start escalating things again, so she just nodded. Maybe waiting up to talk to him had been a mistake. She avoided his gaze as she folded the throw blanket and draped it over the arm of the chair.

“Pia.” She looked at him. He held the jewelry box out to her. “I have a present for you.”

The starch keeping her spine ramrod straight melted. Damn him again. “Do you?”

He opened the box and lifted out the necklace. Gold and rainbow fire glittered in his dark fingers and was reflected in the gleam of his eyes. “I wanted to see how the opals would look against your skin.”

“It’s a beautiful present,” she told him. “Thank you.”

“I’d like to put it on you.”

“All right,” she said.

She pulled her hair into a hand and held it aside as she twisted in the chair. His fingers worked at her nape, securing the clasp. Then the weight of the necklace settled into place around her neck, much heavier than the slim chains she was used to. It was longer than a choker and fell to the top of her breasts. She looked down at it and touched one of the stones.

His fingers stroked the hollow at the base of her neck and trailed along her skin. “Lovely,” he whispered. He bent and angled his head to press a kiss against her throat. She stroked his black hair, her eyes half closed.

He drew back. The lines of strain were bracketing his mouth again. “Do you want to stay or not?”

“I’ll be honest with you,” she told him. “It’s hard to want to stay when you’re being impossible. But I don’t want to go.”

His gaze flared with something, triumph or relief, or maybe both. He started to pull her back into his arms.

“Wait.” She braced both hands on his chest. “I’m not done. I don’t see how we can finish this conversation until something else is concluded.”

“And what is that?” His eyes narrowed.

“I need to know for sure who and what I am. We both need to know. That’s got to come before anything else. You think you want me to stay, but what if you change your mind?” She put fingers over his mouth when he started to speak and said, “It doesn’t matter what you say right now, since this is actually about me. I won’t be able to trust things between us until I believe you know who I am. Hell, until I know who I am. I want you to help me try to change, please.”

He took hold of her hand and removed her fingers from his mouth. “Can I speak now?” he demanded.

He sounded mad again. She wondered if anyone had ever told him before that it didn’t matter what he said or thought. She licked dry lips and said, “Yes.”

“All right. You want to do this, we’ll do it right now.” He stood and pulled her to her feet.

“Now?” She looked at a nearby wall clock. “It’s four thirty in the morning.”

“The hell difference does that make? I’m not going to give you time to overanalyze things and chicken out. You napped, didn’t you?” He took her by the wrist and strode out the door.

“Well, yes.” She trotted to keep up with him. “Damn it, that’s another thing. You’ve got to stop dragging me around like a sack of potatoes.” It was always some kind of he-man issue with him.

He shifted his hold to lace his fingers through hers. “Better?”

“Maybe,” she grumbled.

He led her to the bedroom and into the dressing room. “You’re going to want to put on jeans and some shoes, maybe grab a sweater or jacket. There’s a pocket of Other land about fifteen minutes’ flight west of the city. I’ve used it before for this kind of thing. It’s not very big, but the magic is strong and steady.”

“Okay.” She walked into her closet and stopped. Nerves started to tie her insides up in knots.

Was she going to let him railroad her into doing this now?

Yes. Because he was right, she would overanalyze and she was already tempted to chicken out. It was hard enough to try on her own and fail to change. So much seemed to be on the line with this one.

Not giving herself a chance to think, she tore out of her skirt and hopped into a pair of jeans. She sat on the floor to tug on socks and her new running shoes, then grabbed a black zippered sweatshirt. Then she removed the opal necklace with care and laid it out on her dresser beside her small jewelry chest. She went into the bathroom to run her brush through her hair a couple of times, and she yanked the length back into a scrunchie.

Dragos appeared in the bathroom doorway. He had kept the jeans on and changed out of the Armani shirt, into another black T-shirt that molded to his muscled torso. He wore black boots and had a gun holstered at his waist and a sword strapped to his back.

She drew up short at the sight. “Oh-kay.”

“It’s just a precaution, Pia. We’re leaving the city,” he said. “We’re not going far, the gryphons are going with us, and we’ll still be well inside my demesne, but you’ve got to get used to this. Going out armed is a fact of life now.”

“Of course. It’s just another thing to get used to.” She looked at the holster. “A gun?”

“It’s for any trouble we might run into on this side of the passage. They’re safe enough to pack if you don’t fire them on the other side.”

She grimaced. “I guess I’ll adjust.”

“You’re doing more than fine with all this,” he told her. “I’m proud of you.”

She smiled at him as pleasure welled. She figured it was a measure of how far gone she was that his praise could affect her so. But she also suspected he didn’t offer praise lightly or often.

“All set?” he asked.

“Yes.” This time when he reached for her she was ready for him and took hold of his hand.

Bayne, Constantine, Graydon and Rune were armed and waiting for them when they went up to the roof. She looked from one to another. They were relaxed and alert and gave no hint that being called out before dawn was anything unusual. Graydon winked at her and she gave him an uncertain smile.

She hadn’t envisioned having quite such an audience when she tried to shift again. She struggled to not let it matter but the terrible sense of exposure from earlier that day came back, turning her nervousness to fear.

Dragos walked with her to the center of the roof. Some signal passed between the men that she didn’t catch. The four sentinels shifted into gryphons. She lost all sense of fear as wonder overcame her and she stared. They had the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. No drawing of a gryphon she had ever seen had quite managed to capture their strange majesty or fierce dignity. They were smaller than Dragos in his dragon form but still huge to her eyes, each one’s sleek muscled body the size of an SUV.

Dragos’s Power shimmered at her back. She turned and looked up at the bronze and black dragon and forgot all about the gryphons. He bent his immense, horned, triangular head down to her. She spread her hands over his snout, eyes shining.

He gave her a very careful nudge and whuffled. She pressed a kiss to the warm hide between her fingers. He picked her up, gathered himself on powerful haunches and launched from the Tower.

Just as Dragos had promised, the flight was short, which was good since it was so unpleasant. She kept her eyes closed so she didn’t have to look at the cityscape scrolling by underneath. She breathed through her mouth in an effort to control the nausea that welled as they took to the air.

After five minutes or so the violent nausea subsided and she felt herself acclimate to the flight. They had already passed over the Hudson and crossed into New Jersey, the gryphons winging in a protective formation around them. It was not long until they banked and began to glide downward.

She tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The spray of electric lights that blanketed the land broke up ahead of them, and a darker mass rose up ahead of them against the night sky. She asked, What is that?

First Watchung Mountain, said Dragos. This is a short, tight passageway along a deep ravine. Hold on.

The sense of land magic came on fast. The gryphons fell back as he went into a steep descent and glided very low. They passed between trees that topped the edges of a ravine. She could have sworn Dragos’s wingtips brushed the rocky edges on either side.

The lights in the distance behind them wavered and disappeared, and she could tell they had crossed over to the Other land. Dragos climbed in altitude but just for a few more minutes. Soon they dropped into a large clearing.

She found her land legs as Dragos put her on her feet. She stared around, reveling in the wind and the quiet. The night sky on this side of the passage was strewn with filmy clouds. The shimmer of land magic was stronger than she had ever felt before. It called to her on a silver moon tide, rousing the caged creature that lived in her so that it wailed and threw itself against the inside of her skin, beating to get out. She stared at the etched silhouette of trees that rippled and swayed in the wind, wondering what this little jewel of a place would look like in the daytime.

Dragos shifted, but the gryphons didn’t. They took watch in four points around the clearing. Dragos walked up behind her. He put his arms around her, pulling her back against him. She breathed deep, crossed her arms over his and leaned her head back against his chest. Her blood ratcheted too fast through her veins. She said, “I feel like I’m at home and in exile at the same time. I wish I could settle down.”

“We have time. We’re not going to rush this. And this is not an all-or-nothing situation. If it doesn’t work the first time, we’ll learn from it and try again.” His voice was calm and quiet. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m going to tell you some things now. Some of it is stuff I know, and some is just my opinion. I want you to listen to me: I am not asking you to do anything. If you want to turn around right now and go back to New York without trying, we’ll do that. All right?”

I love you, she almost said. She caught the words back just in time and instead gave him a jerky nod.

“You stand a greater chance of shifting if you give me your true Name.” His arms tightened, although she hadn’t moved. “I’m not asking you to give me your Name. We can try this without it. I’m just telling you that I can help you better if I know it. Sometimes half-breeds get caught in midtransition and they’re unable to complete the change. If that happens I can pull you over with your Name.”

“All right,” she said, her breathing choppy. “What else?”

“I’ve been giving this some thought. I know your mother has put protection spells on you. I could feel them right away when I first tried to beguile you. How long have you had them?”

“Ever since I can remember,” she replied. She tilted her head back to look up at him. His head was dark against the night sky, but she could see the faint lines of his face and the dark glitter of his eyes. “Mom was always worried that something might happen to her before I grew up. She was also worried about me being a half-breed, since I wasn’t as strong as she was and I couldn’t do half the things she could. I think she felt guilty for having me.”

His hand circled her throat underneath her chin. He kissed her mouth. “It’s clear she loved you very much and all she meant to do was keep you safe. She never meant to hurt you in any way.”

“She did,” Pia said.

Dragos continued, “I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing those protection spells are hampering your change. They’re very tightly woven around your core. So the way I see it, you have a couple of choices. You can try to shift just the way you are, and for all I know you’ll be able to. But if you want to give this your strongest shot, I think you should at least remove the protection spells while you try to shift. Sharing your Name is another issue altogether. It’s a pretty radical step. But I wanted you to know it’s on the table too.”

Panic tried to take her over. She fought an overwhelming urge to bolt. What the hell was she doing? This was going in the exact opposite direction of everything she had ever been taught. She gritted, “Give me a minute.”

“Take your time,” he said, his voice quiet and calm. He rubbed her arms.

Could her mother have trapped her with the very spells that were meant to keep her safe? How could she trust Dragos so much?

They were standing in the open, but she still felt the cage inside. She had always felt she was never strong or good enough. Next to her mother’s shining, radiant beauty, she felt dull as dirt and inadequate.

She knew her mother had loved her and would have hated to find out she had made her feel this way. But her mother had always been so afraid for her. Had her father’s death made her mother that fearful?

“I don’t want to live this way any longer,” she whispered. Dragos’s hands clenched on her, but he remained silent. She turned to face him. “I can’t take off the protection spells. I don’t know how. Can you remove them?”

“Not without hurting you.” He cupped her face in his hands. “And I will not do that.”

What if I tell you my Name? she asked, unable to say the words out loud.

Then yes, I could.

She looked up at the sky and told him her Name.

The breath left his body. He shuddered and held her tight, bowing his head and shoulders, wrapping himself around her. “You’ll never regret it,” he murmured. “Never. I swear that on my life.”

She laid a hand against his cheek as she rested against his chest.

He nuzzled her hand and began to whisper.

The whispers curled around her body, stroking her, urging her to relax, to open up to him. She looked up into his dark face and shadowed, hypnotic gaze. He stole into her like a thief in the night.

The dragon filled her to the deepest part of her being, coiling his bronze, serpentine body around her, whispering, whispering. The intricate citadel of spells inside her fell away. Great gold eyes filled her vision, as fathomless as the world. There was not a single part of her he did not hold.

Then with consummate skill, he began to withdraw. She looked at what he showed her, how to tap deep into herself for her Power when she willed the shift. Then she was alone inside her head. He cradled her and whispered, “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she whispered back. “But I feel so strange.” She felt stripped, all her senses wide-open. The tiny hairs on her skin raised as the wind blew through the clearing, and the world breathed magic.

He smiled. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever get, I think.”

He let go of her and stepped back. She could feel his Power as he maintained a light connection with her. She looked around the open space. The gryphons were shadowed, motionless sentinels.

She reached deep inside for her Power. It came readily to her, welling up more plentiful and richer than it ever had. It filled her with a roaring gush of light. She stretched and extended everything she had toward the trapped wild creature that lay inside, the elusive part of her she had never before been quite able to reach . . .

And the world shifted.