Dragos Takes A Holiday

Chapter Six

Early the next morning, Pia dressed in Capri cargo pants, a lemon-yellow tank top and her slender silver sandals. Dragos dressed simply as well, in jeans and a gray T-shirt that stretched across the breadth of his chest and biceps.

After a quick, cheerful breakfast, Pia slipped Liam into his baby carrier and strapped him to her torso. She and Dragos walked the path to the beach, where Dragos changed into his dragon form.

Liam crowed with excitement and craned his neck to look at Dragos. Pia turned so he could study his father, and he flailed his arms.

“This is one excited baby.” She jerked her head back with a laugh as one of his chubby fists clipped her on the chin.

The dragon bent his immense head and nosed Liam, who shrieked happily and pounded the dragon’s snout. Pia laughed harder as she imagined what they might look like to a total stranger. If she had witnessed such a bizarre sight without knowing any of them, she would have been absolutely terrified for the baby and the woman holding him.

The dragon’s huge gold eyes danced. He said to Pia, “Are you ready?”

“You bet.”

Dragos scooped Pia into one forepaw with extreme care and twisted to set her on his back. With the familiarity of long practice, she scooted up to the natural hollow where the base of the dragon’s neck met his shoulders. As soon as she settled into place, she patted his dusky bronze hide. “All set.”

Her heart leaped as he crouched and launched over the water in a breathtaking surge of power. It never got old. Dragos’s lunges into the air used to scare her, since for flights like this, she rode him without a strap or harness of any kind, but her confidence and trust had grown over time. Even in his dragon form, he was blindingly fast. Once, she had started to slide from her perch, and he had twisted in midair to snatch her up in one paw before she fell.

However, this flight didn’t go as planned. When they went airborne, Liam gave another happy shriek—and shapeshifted.

Astonished, Pia stared down at him. Normally when he rode in the baby carrier, he was strapped snugly against the front of her body, but his dragon form was much longer and leaner than his human baby form, and now the carrier hung loose around his sleek body.

He began to crawl onto her shoulders. She threw her arms tightly around him. He wriggled to get away from her, his head turned and jewel-bright eyes fixed on Dragos’s huge, flapping wings.

“We’ve got a problem,” she called out.

Immediately Dragos stopped his ascent, spread his wings wide and coasted. He tried to look around, but he couldn’t twist far enough to see what happened at the base of his neck. “What’s wrong?”

“Liam changed again—he’s trying to get away from me. I don’t know if I can hold on to him!”

She grabbed Liam by one foreleg and wrapped her fingers around the base of one wing as he freed it from the carrier. Liam flapped his wing and smacked her in the face. Pain flared as he hit her in the nose. Her eyes watered.

Dragos said, “Let him go.”

Pia blinked the tears from her eyes and looked around, her thoughts racing. They were already a couple of hundred yards out from shore. If she let Liam go and he tried to fly but couldn’t, Dragos would to have to lunge to catch him. If he did, she didn’t know if she could hold her seat, or if Dragos could catch them both if they fell.

But it quickly became clear that they might both fall anyway. Liam’s strength in his dragon form was sobering. He wasn’t even fighting with her. She could tell he was excited, not distressed, but he was so determined she could barely hold on to him.

Thank God they were flying over the water. She thought of hitting the surface at the speed they were going. It might hurt, but at this height, it wouldn’t kill her. It would help if she controlled her fall and hit the surface in a dive.

“Okay,” she said. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

She let go of Liam. He pulled free from the carrier, balanced on her shoulders and launched into the air. Heart in her throat, she watched as he flapped his wings enthusiastically and…

Plummeted in an ungainly spiral.

“Watch out, he’s falling!” she shouted.

Fear clutched her. Strong though he might be, he was still a baby. She might survive if she hit the water, but the fall could kill him.

Quick as a cat, Dragos twisted and snatched him out of the air. “Got him.”

“Jesus wept.” She hunched over Dragos’s neck, leaning on one hand. “That sight aged me twenty years.”

Dragos wheeled and flew back to shore. When he landed, he knelt so Pia could slide to the ground. She managed to do so without falling, which was a major feat since her legs were shaking so badly. She walked around to face him.

He held the small, white dragon in one cupped paw. As she joined them, he turned his paw upward and opened his talons. Liam leaped and flapped his wings madly, and fell in a sprawl on the beach. He rolled to his feet and crouched to spring into the air again.

Dragos put a paw on him. “NO.”

Liam froze.

Dragos picked him up, held him between two talons and regarded him. The small, white dragon hung meekly limp in his grasp.

Dragos offered Liam to Pia, who gathered him in her arms. Suddenly sitting down seemed like a good idea. She plopped on the sand, crossed her legs and cuddled the baby. Liam rested his head on her shoulder, his expression thoughtful.

Dragos’s Wyr form disappeared as he shapeshifted. Glancing quickly along the deserted beach, he walked over to kneel beside her and they both contemplated the graceful white form of their son.

Uncertainty chewed at Pia. She angled her head up to Dragos. “Are we terrible parents? I mean, who takes their baby up in the air like that?”

“We’re excellent parents. What we did was natural and normal. Avian Wyr take their babies in the air all the time.”

He sounded so sensible. She tried to calm down. “My heart almost stopped when I watched him fall.”

“He was never in any danger.” Dragos looked deeply into her eyes. “Neither were you. If you had fallen with him, I would have caught you too. This wasn’t any different than me tossing him in the air and catching him in the living room. You just got scared. That’s all.”

She put her cheek down on top of the white dragon’s head. “Avian Wyr really do that?”

“Yes, they do.” He rubbed her back, his touch slow and soothing. “In fact, falling is part of learning to fly. Clearly Liam and I will need to go out and do some practicing. You’re welcome to come up with us if you want.”

“No, thanks. I think I’ll stay on the ground for those lessons.” She shook her head and rubbed the back of her neck. “He’s going to be able to fly before he’s a year old. We need to get a toddler leash and hire avian nannies.”

“We will. It’s all right.”

Gradually her heart stopped its headlong pounding as she listened to him. She considered Dragos’s expression. He was entirely calm. In fact, the only thing he evidenced was mild concern for her.

She came to the humbling realization that she was the only one who had panicked. “You weren’t bothered in the slightest by what happened, were you?”

He managed to produce a vaguely apologetic expression. “I’m afraid not.”

Blowing out a breath, she glanced down at Liam. He lifted his head and smiled at her. Good God, look at those teeth. Baby though he was, with those teeth and razor-sharp talons, Liam could do some serious damage to someone if he had a mind to, yet the only thing he had done so far is damage her clothes.

He was already being careful.

She stroked his head. “You’re such a good boy. I’m so proud of you.”

He leaned into her hand and sighed.

“I guess our morning flight is cancelled,” Dragos said.

Liam’s head popped up. His expression turned stricken.

Pia steeled her heart against the sight. The primary reason they had come to Bermuda in the first place was so that Dragos would get some time for rest and recreation.

“That’s all right.” She smiled at Dragos. “Why don’t you start your search? We don’t need to come with you. I’ll start on the research.” She turned her attention to Liam. “If you want to come with me, you need to change back into your human form. Otherwise you have to stay here with Uncle Hugh.”

Liam’s gaze slid sideways to Dragos.

Pia told the baby firmly, “No, you’re not going with your dad. You can go flying with him soon, but not this morning.”

Thunderclouds gathered in his violet eyes. He growled.

A thoroughly annoyed baby dragon was quite a sight. Her face compressed, and she bit both of her lips. She would not laugh.

Dragos tapped Liam’s snout. “Stop that. Don’t growl at your mother.”

The peanut blinked and jumped. Giving her an apologetic look, he changed, and she held her innocuous, human-looking baby in her arms.

She cuddled him close. “That’s better.”

Dragos kissed the top of Liam’s head then kissed her on the mouth. “I’m going to take off.”

“Have fun.”

“You too.” He paused. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. If it gets boring, stop.”

“Don’t worry about me. We’ll have fun and be fine.” She shooed him. “Go. Be free.”

He smiled and changed, stepped a few paces away from them and leaped. Dragos had taught her some time ago how to see beyond the cloaking spell. She watched him soar, the dragon’s huge wingspan conquering the air. No matter how long she lived, she would never get tired of that sight.

Back at the house, she found Eva and Hugh drinking coffee and reading newspapers that Hugh had picked up earlier from the local grocery store. They both looked up as she entered the kitchen. Eva asked, “Did you have a nice flight?”

“Well, we had an eventful one.” Pia told them wryly what had happened. Eva groaned but Hugh just laughed. Pia regarded him with a sour expression. “Do gargoyles really take their babies on flights?”

“Every chance we get.” Hugh grinned. “In some clans, the parents toss ’em off a cliff.”

She shuddered. “And there for a while I thought we were the worst parents ever.”

“Not so,” he replied. “Hitting the ground in our gargoyle form doesn’t hurt us. If a baby gargoyle gets that far, he’ll just bounce.”

She thought of Hugh’s hard, stonelike façade when he was in his Wyr form. Still, she said doubtfully, “If you say so.”

Eva slapped her hands on her thighs. “Enough about that. Ready to go exploring?”

Pia bounced on the balls of her feet. “Yep. Let’s go.”

They headed out the door. Eva drove again while Hugh took shotgun, and Pia rode in the back beside Liam in his car seat.

Eva glanced in the rear view mirror. “I poked around online while you guys were out to dinner last night. There’s an Elder museum located in an old lighthouse on the west coast of Somerset Island. You wanna start there?”

“Absolutely.” Pia smiled with satisfaction.

The drive took about twenty minutes, and a good section of the route followed the coast. After a brilliant rose-and-gold dawn, the late morning remained perfect, sunny and cloudless. Light sparkled off the intense blue ocean. Both motor and sailboats dotted the water.

The Elder museum was located in the Beacon Hill lighthouse, which sat on the edge of land that jutted into the water. The white-and-red lighthouse towered against a backdrop of blue sky and water. Slowing, Eva turned the Mercedes down a narrow lane.

Pia looked around with interest as Eva pulled into a small, half-full parking lot. A few picnic benches were scattered across a wide lawn, and a Dark Fae family sat at one of the tables eating ice cream. Across the lawn, two trolls sat side by side, their faces tilted up to the sun. They looked like boulders that someone had carved faces on. At the far side of the building, a tall man with a ponytail leaned against the corner.

Pia’s eyes narrowed. The man stood in the shade, and it was impossible to make out his features from the parking lot. His hair was dark, not blond. Could it be the human male from the bar?

If so, it was a hell of a coincidence for him to be hanging out here, after their run-in last night. She thought of how the two males had gone silent and tense while she and Dragos had talked. What exactly had they discussed?

They couldn’t have mentioned the lighthouse. She had only found out about it this morning when Eva told her. But Bermuda was a small place. “Eva, you didn’t find anywhere else for us to do research, did you?”

“Nope, unless you want to check out the Bermuda Maritime Museum. That’ll be focused more on human history, so I think you might want to call first before making a trip over there.”

Pia stepped out of the Mercedes, shading her eyes. Moving quicker than his nonchalant attitude would have suggested, Hugh joined her. The man pushed away from the building in the other direction and disappeared.

Hugh asked, “What’s up?”

“Come with me.” She told Eva, “Watch the baby.”

She strode across the parking lot with Hugh at her side. Hugh said, “If you saw something you think is dangerous, you’d better tell me.”

“I don’t know what I saw.” Unsettled, Pia’s gaze swept over the people at the picnic tables again. “Just a man leaning against the side of the building, here at the corner.”

They reached the spot where they could see the far side of the building. A narrow path led alongside the building and down the hill. Pia rubbed the back of her head and tried to decide how paranoid she was, while Hugh stood watching her patiently.

She started on the path but was brought up short by Hugh’s hand on her arm. “You wanna see what’s down this path, okay, but I’ll go first.”

Impatiently, she gestured for him to go ahead of her then followed close behind, glancing up once at the lighthouse that towered high overhead. They reached the farthest corner of the building that faced the ocean, and walked to the edge of a sharp drop where they surveyed the scene.

The path cut down a short, rocky bluff to a pier where a motorboat carried a single male occupant with a dark ponytail. The boat headed out to sea.

Hugh angled his head at Pia. His usual sleepy expression had vanished, and he looked alert and interested. “What now?”

She blew out a breath. “Now we go back to the car, and I’ll tell you and Eva about what happened last night.”

They retraced their steps along the path. Pia paused where the man had been standing as they pulled up. She caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke, along with a male scent.

Hugh inhaled deeply. “I’ll remember his scent.”

“So will I.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Does this guy have anything to do with what happened last night?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell. We were in a bar with cooking food and a lot of people packed up against each other, and I didn’t get close to him. Come on, let’s get back to Eva and Liam.”

The Mercedes idled, engine running, in the parking space. When they approached, she heard a mechanical click as Eva unlocked the doors. She and Hugh climbed into the air conditioned vehicle.

Pia told them about the men at the bar. She frowned. “I’m pretty sure that Dragos and I talked about starting the search for the Sebille, but I can’t remember what exactly we said to each other.”

“And you feel like they didn’t recognize you or Dragos.” Eva didn’t frame it as a question.

Pia shrugged impatiently. “I don’t even know that the man today had anything to do with last night. I just saw a guy with a ponytail and remembered the men at the bar. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

“Paranoid is a lot better than stupid, sugar.” Eva drummed her fingers thoughtfully against the steering wheel. “And we’re gonna keep on being paranoid. Hugh, go scout out the museum before we head inside.”

“Be right back.” Hugh slid out of the SUV and ambled toward the building.

He returned in a few minutes. Eva rolled down her window as he approached the driver’s side. “The guy’s scent is definitely inside, but the museum’s all clear.”

Pia unbuckled the straps on Liam’s car seat and lifted him out. “Let’s take a look around.”