Chapter 20
Alaric
“But that’s impossible. Dragons have been gone for two thousand years.”
Everly, seeing how tense I was—and smart enough to read the room —eased behind me and let me be her shield. I glanced back to check on her, and it was clear she was not okay. She’d gone pale, and fear flickered in her eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” I murmured. “We have Elandor, remember? And he’s bigger.”
Elandor snorted. “Thank you for that.” He inhaled through his nose. “I think he’s under some kind of spell. I’m fairly certain we’re going to need a warlock to figure out what he’s under and wake him.”
We all looked at one another and said at the same time, “Shay.”
“I can bring him here, I think,” Everly said. “Without us having to go get him.”
Elandor nodded. “That would be best. Now that we’ve found this dragon, I don’t think we should leave him. If your magic brought you to him, there was a reason.”
“He might be dying,” I said quietly. “We have no idea how long he’s been asleep.”
Elandor and Everly both nodded, sober now.
“Give me a sec,” Everly said, closing her eyes to focus on the dreamscape.
After a minute she opened them again, frustration clouding her expression.
“I don’t know how to find him. It’s different with shifters.
My magic latches onto them and I can move them in and out.
But Shay’s a warlock, and my magic isn’t tuned to him. ”
“You found this dragon, though,” I reminded her. “So it’s possible.”
She looked up at the massive sleeping dragon. “Yeah, that’s the weird part. He had a golden thread. He shouldn’t have had one if he isn’t a shifter.”
Elandor cleared his throat—a very human habit that always amused me. “It’s possible, mated as you are to a dragon shifter, that dragons have now been added to your golden threads. They are, essentially, part of you.”
“We just weren’t expecting actual dragons,” I said dryly, and Everly laughed, the sound a little shaky.
Elandor snorted, steam puffing into the already warm cavern. Without him inside me, I felt… cold. Dim. Even as a ghost, I missed him.
He glanced at me, clearly having caught my thought, then turned his attention back to Everly. “All right. Let’s bring Shay to us.”
Everly held up a finger. “What if he’s… in the middle of something?”
“He has no life,” I said. “I assure you he’s not in the middle of anything important.”
Everly bit her lip, still uncertain, but eventually nodded.
“Close your eyes and focus on what you remember of Shay,” Elandor instructed.
“His scent. How it feels to be around him. What his personality is like. His appearance. Once you’re focused, you should be able to get a sense of where he is.
Shifters may be easier to find, but you should be able to locate anyone. ”
“I promise to use my powers only for good,” Everly said with a cheeky smile, eyes still closed.
Elandor chuckled. “Yes, you’d be quite dangerous if you didn’t. You also would probably be dead. The other paranormals wouldn’t put up with a berserk dreamseeker.”
Everly winced. “Got it. No shenanigans.”
“Once you feel you’ve found the essence of Shay, follow it to him,” Elandor said.
She frowned in concentration, then after a few long moments her expression brightened. “I think I’ve got him.”
“Good. Hold fast to him and pull him here.”
Everly scrunched her face, concentrating, then jerked backward as though she’d yanked a rope that suddenly had no weight in this realm. She almost went flying.
I reached for her, forgetting I couldn’t catch her like this—but Shay, appearing in the cavern at that exact second, caught her with his magic instead.
She was nearly horizontal, close to the floor, but Shay’s silvery power held her until he stepped forward and helped her stand.
Completely useless, I looked down at my faint, insubstantial hands and swallowed my frustration.
“Whew, thanks,” Everly said, brushing at her clothes.
“I thought I’d be able to feel the pull in the physical world, but I guess it was all mental.
” Then she really looked at Shay, realized he was in jeans, socks, and no shirt, and went beet red, staring firmly up at the ceiling. “Why are you not wearing a shirt?”
Shay didn’t answer her. His gaze was fixed on the dragon. “I won’t ask how you brought me here—after leaving me in Alaska, thank you very much—but that is a real dragon,” he said faintly, eyes tracing the curve of the dragon’s azure and black wing.
“We’d figured that out,” I said. No point stating the obvious. “We need you to fix him.”
Shay rolled his eyes at my tone but moved closer. His magic always worked better with touch. He laid his hand along the dragon’s wingtip, then ran his fingers over the dulled scales, reading what we couldn’t see.
“Is he going to be okay?” Everly asked, anxiety creeping back into her voice. “My magic brought us here to help him. That has to mean there’s enough of him left to help… right?”
I ached to take her hand, to steady her, but I couldn’t. Elandor could, though. He moved closer, nudged her gently with his nose, and thrummed low in his chest, filling the cavern with the calming sound.
Everly sagged against him, soaking in the comfort—and for the first time in my life, I was jealous of my other half.
It was ridiculous. Like being jealous of your own shadow. But he was solid, and I wasn’t, and I wanted to hold my mate.
Elandor shot me a quieting look, and I looked away, back to Shay. He was running his fingers along the dragon’s snout now, following invisible pathways of magic.
“Everly,” he said without looking up, “explain your magic to me. Why were you drawn here?”
Everly shook her head. “That’s the thing—I don’t know. I’m a… dream-type magic user, but only for shifters. Since he’s not a shifter, he shouldn’t have had a golden thread. Elandor thinks it’s because Alaric is a dragon shifter, so dragons are now included in whatever my magic can reach.”
Shay stepped back and sighed. “That could be it. But I might have a different explanation.” He glanced at the dragon again.
“This dragon has been placed in between the dreamscape and the living world. On top of that, he’s been spelled to sleep for eternity—or until his body gives out.
” His mouth tightened. “Which, if he doesn’t get help, will be soon. ”
Everly covered her mouth, then lowered it again. “But that means I should be able to pull him out of the in-between, right? If he’s in the dreamscape at all, I should be able to reach him.”
“Hey,” I said, stepping a little closer even if I couldn’t touch her. “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay.”
She nodded, chewing her lip. “I hope so.”
Shay came back to us. “We can do both. Everly, I’ll boost your power with mine to move him fully into the living world. That’s where I need to heal him. It won’t do much good to try to repair him while he’s stuck halfway.”
Relief flickered through her eyes. “Okay. How do we do that?”
Shay finally turned and got a good look at me. His eyes widened. “Why are you Casper right now?”
“I’m not friendly,” I said, baring my teeth.
He huffed a laugh. “Noted. I’m going to ignore Casper Alaric for now.” Then, to Everly, “We might have to try a couple of things, but I’m fairly certain, between the two of us, we can get him out.”
“I’ll lend my help,” Elandor said, and began thrumming again.
But this one was lower in pitch. The cavern again resonated with the sound.
It took me a moment to realize that I was resonating with the sound.
Wide eyed, I looked down at my hands as they shifted back and forth between corporeal and non-corporeal.
I didn’t know you could do that, I sent Elandor telepathically.
There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, he said with a mental sniff, and I grinned.
It won’t shift you all the way corporeal.
I don’t have that power, he warned, and I nodded, still looking at my fluctuating hands in awe.
Dragon thrums were incredibly powerful. More powerful than I’d ever given them credit.
“Sorry, Alaric,” Shay said. “I’ve got to hold your mate’s hand.”
He at least looked apologetic about it, but I still ground my teeth. I was a little sensitive at the moment about other people getting to hold and touch my mate when I couldn’t.
I nodded reluctantly in understanding, and Shay grabbed Everly’s hand as they both stepped closer to the dragon. They spent a minute or so conferring in whispered conversation with one another, and then closed their eyes.
Shay didn’t use words of power. He was a mage, and mages didn’t use spells.
I always thought of them as the brute force of the wizarding world with unrealistic amounts of power.
They didn’t finesse. They bashed right through things.
Well, most mages did. But Shay was different, and had been trained by his sweet mother, may she rest in peace.
She’d been older when she’d adopted Shay, and she wasn’t a mage, she was a witch with very little power.
She didn’t use spells either—only a certain branch of wizards did, and it was mostly nonsense—but because she had so little power she’d learned to coax it better, to use finesse.
Because of that, Shay, who had massive amounts of magic, was probably one of the most skilled mages in the world.
It turned out, brute force didn’t always win the day. Skill, finesse, and brute force did.
Still, I almost fell on my butt when power suddenly shot out of my best friend so blindingly bright and so powerfully that it temporarily blinded me. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my face, little good it did me because my hands were see through.