Fire Rising

CHAPTER TEN

Sammi looked to the sky often, searching for any sign of the dragon. For the next two hours there was nothing, and she was beginning to think she’d imagined the entire thing.

Except for the scrape on her palm where she had tried to hang onto the boulder.

It had happened. She had fallen and been saved by a dragon. She refused to even think she might be going crazy. If she allowed herself to travel along that path, she just might end up insane.

Instead, she recalled the feel of the wind as it had sped around her, whipping her hair into her face. She remembered being stopped midair as if cradled. And she had been—in the palm of a dragon’s hand.

His fingers—all five of them—had gently closed around her. How had she forgotten that? She wouldn’t ever forget the warmth of him, or the hardness of his scales. And his color.

Amber.

She couldn’t say how she knew it was a male, only that she did. His green eyes, as bright as apples, had looked at her with concern.

Sammi stopped walking. There was something about the dragon’s eyes, something she recognized, almost as if she had seen him before.

Which was impossible. She would definitely remember seeing a dragon. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him. Was that why the fear she had first felt was fading—rapidly?

Just before she was about to continue her trek, she heard the booming beat that she recognized as that of the dragon’s wing as he flew.

She looked to the sky, but could see nothing but thick clouds for miles. The clouds were moving swiftly but showed no signs of thinning anytime soon.

Sammi adjusted her purse and started walking. The dragon was near. She knew it as surely as she knew her mother was in Heaven. Just as she knew that she would get another glimpse of the magnificent creature if she was patient.

The rest of the afternoon went by without another sound from the dragon. She decided to call it a day when she found some rocks protruding from the mountain. They’d shelter her in case it rained during the night, as it was wont to do in the mountains.

She ate the lone apple in her bag, and then discovered that she had managed to drink her last bottle of water throughout the day.

Sammi sighed and got to her feet. She had heard water as she walked. It couldn’t be that far. If the mist would clear she would probably be able to find it easily enough.

Not wanting to get turned around again, she dug into her large bag and pulled out the colored chalk she used to write on her board at the pub and made a big X on the rocks so she could find her way back.

She followed the sound of the water and surprisingly found it easy enough.

“If only everything was this easy,” she mumbled as she knelt beside the water.

Above her, cascading over dozens of rocks, was a waterfall that fell ten feet into the stream that then meandered down the mountain.

Sammi pulled out both of her empty bottles and filled them. She was putting the cap on the second when she glanced at the water and saw an image of a man as if he stood over her.

He had black hair shot with silver, but it was his red eyes that took her aback. She instantly recognized him as the man from the restaurant.

She whirled around, but no one was there. A glance in the water showed only her reflection.

“Maybe I am going crazy. Dragons and guys with red eyes. That’s just no possible.”

After going in two different directions and not finding the marks on the trees, Sammi began to get anxious. She let out a loud sigh when, on the third attempt, she found her marks that led her back to her camp.

Sammi settled back against the rocks and looked out over the mountains. It was hours before dark would descend in the Highlands, but her eyes were already getting heavy.

She was getting weaker, her shoulder ached, and the meager food she had bought wasn’t going to last her another two days, especially when she could eat it all right then.

After wiping away the blood from her stitches, Sammi settled on her side and used her purse as a pillow after taking out the water bottles.

In that place between waking and sleep, Sammi found herself thinking about Tristan and the dragon, until they became one and the same.

Tristan with his mysterious air about him, and the dragon, a creature of myth and legend come to life.

She thought of Tristan’s soulful dark eyes and the dragon’s alarm and concern—that same look had been in Tristan’s gaze when she had tried to leave Dreagan and he’d stopped her.

Sammi’s eyes flew open as realization hit her. She knew why the dragon’s gaze had looked so familiar. It reminded her of Tristan.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flash of amber through the clouds. The sun had set behind a mountain peak casting the side of her mountain in shadows. She kept still as if asleep, and closed her eyes until they were slits but she could still see.

And then she waited.

Between dozing, she would wake, thinking she heard the dragon getting closer and closer. This last time was different. She cracked open her eyes to see the dragon glide effortlessly down from the clouds heading straight for her.

Her breath locked in her lungs as she watched the dragon tuck his head and roll as the amber scales changed into sun-kissed bronze skin.

The man rolled as he hit the ground and came up on bent knees with his hands on the ground and his head still tucked, his long, light brown hair falling to hide his face. Slowly, almost warily, he lifted his head and his hair fell around his shoulders in disarray.

Sammi recognized him before he stood. She knew that hair, had longed to run her fingers through it. Then he straightened.

She drank in the sight of him, from his wide shoulders corded with muscles to his narrow waist to his tight butt and long, muscular legs.

Her eyes jerked up to his lower back where she saw what had to be a tattoo, but it was so long and narrow that she couldn’t make out what it was

Then he turned to face her. Sammi had seen gorgeous men before, but not one of them compared to Tristan in all his glory. He stood as imposing as a vengeful spirit and as commanding as a god. He was startlingly handsome, dazzlingly strong.

Mind-bogglingly virile.

The wind whistled about him, as if caressing his body as she longed to do. It pushed his hair away from his face. Sammi bit her lip as he closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sky as if being in human form pained him.

Her gaze lowered from his face to his chest and his impressive body, but it wasn’t just the thick sinew that caught her attention—it was the tattoo that covered his entire chest.

The tat was done in an amazing mixture of red and black ink, making it neither red nor black, but a beautiful mix of both.

The tat itself was of a dragon. It stood on its hind legs with its wings spread wide. The tail wrapped from his waist around to his back. Her eyes drifted lower to his flaccid rod and long legs.

His eyes opened and looked at her before his narrowed gaze shifted to the mist. A muscle ticked in his jaw as if he were deciding what to do.

The decision had already been made for Sammi. He had disappeared once. She didn’t want him to leave again. When he took a step into the mist, she jumped to her feet.

His head whirled to face her, and all emotion fled from his face. He hesitated as if trying to decide to remain or go into the mist.

“I saw you,” Sammi said, hoping it would keep him near. She wasn’t sure why. She was both relieved she wasn’t going insane, and a little scared knowing Tristan was a dragon.

A dragon!

Where she might have run from him earlier, she recalled all too well how he had calmed her where others never could. He had reached a place inside her that only her mother had ever been able to touch.

The fact he could do that is what kept her from being frightened. She did, however, have a healthy dose of anxiety for just what he might be able to do.

“You’re dreaming.”

A shiver raced over her skin at the sound of his voice. How she loved his voice. Sammi shook her head. “I’m not.”

“You hit your head when you fell earlier. You’re dreaming now, Sammi. Your shoulder hurts, and you have a concussion.”

She smiled as she realized to what lengths he would go in order to make her believe she hadn’t seen him shift from a dragon to a human. “I did fall, but I didn’t hit my head. I was saved by a magnificent amber dragon. You.”

His chest expanded as he took a deep breath, causing the dragon tattoo to puff out. “With your injuries, I can see how dreaming this would help you cope.”

Irritation filled her. She knew she wasn’t dreaming, just as she knew she hadn’t hit her head. “Shift back into a dragon. Let me see you again.”

“I can no’.”

She took a step toward him. “I’m not supposed to know, am I?”

Tristan glanced away.

That was answer enough. “You’ve been with me this whole time, haven’t you? And don’t you dare say I’m dreaming,” she said before he could try that tactic again.

“Dammit, Sammi,” he grumbled and ran a hand through his hair.

She let out a long breath. A kernel of doubt had begun to fester until then. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “It’s no’. They’re after you because of your connection to Dreagan.”

“Dreagan?” she repeated, grasping that he meant her sister. “Jane.”

“Aye. Jane.”

“They want Jane?” she asked, more confused than ever.

“They want us.”

Us, as in other dragons. Sammi’s eyes widened. “Banan’s a dragon, too?”

“We’re Dragon Kings, actually,” Tristan said and then frowned as he stiffened. “Shite!”

She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong when he closed the distance between them in two strides and grabbed her uninjured arm as he dragged her after him.

He wedged them both between two boulders, his body pressed against hers from shoulder to thigh. Sammi looked into his dark eyes and found him staring at her.

“What is it?”

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “They’ve found you.”

She tried to run, but he held her steady.

“Nay, Sammi. Trust me.”

But she couldn’t listen. She had seen exactly what they could do. They killed indiscriminately, brutally. Viciously.

“Listen. Listen!” he repeated when she continued to struggle.

Sammi paused and heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. She glanced around his shoulder before sliding her gaze back to him. “Oh, my God.”

“They shouldna be on our land. No one flies over Dreagan but us,” he ground out.

She blinked. “We’re on Dreagan?”

“Aye. You left it to go to the village, but you returned when you ran to the mountains.”

Sammi leaned her head back and winced as the sound of the ’copter grew closer and closer. “What do we do?”

“Nothing. They willna find you here.”

She felt his hand alongside her face as his fingers slid into her hair. She forgot all about running with Tristan around. Her lips parted as she longed to kiss him, to run her hands over his sculpted body.

He was gorgeous, imposing. Irresistible, captivating.

Seductive.

With a look or a word, she was putty in his hands. The world seemed to be at his beck and call just waiting for him to tell it what to do.

Sammi was completely and utterly enthralled with the man who was also a dragon. A dragon who had saved her life.

A dragon who made her heart race and her stomach flutter with anticipation and excitement.

“If they do find you, they willna live to hurt you,” he vowed in that seductive timbre of his.

She calmed, because there was no way they could hurt Tristan—her dragon.