Chapter 8 #5
We’re halfway through our meals when huge raindrops begin pattering against, then pummeling the window. The sudden downpour drums against the metal roof loudly enough to be heard over the general chatter and mood music.
Rainclouds have formed across the previously clear blue sky in an instant. And only over the immediate area, because I can see the sun on the verge of touching the horizon out the front windows of the restaurant.
I feel him the moment before the floor literally rumbles under our feet. Not the man who was supposed to be soul bound to me, because that severed bond was snipped, then archived in the armoire in the tower library by my aunt. But the beast.
His eyes appear first. Bright amber cuts through the rain-darkened haze beyond the window.
Then his huge head comes into view as he prowls forward, crossing from the road and into the small parking lot.
He somehow doesn’t crush any cars, or Cay’s bike, in his wake.
The celestial dragon’s iridescent scales must reflect light, offering some camouflage, because all I can really see are his eyes and massive head.
“Oh, fuck,” Cay mutters. Her cutlery clinks against her plate as she drops it.
Bellamy continues cracking and nibbling on the whole dungeness crab she’s meticulously destroyed, feeding the choice pieces to Presh and DeVille as she works through it.
“Is this a problem?” Gigi asks, her French accent heavy and a thick rope of essence ringing each of her otherwise bare wrists.
“Of course not,” Presh says, peering over her shoulder. “It’s just Rath.”
The celestial dragon presses his face against the window, peering down at me. I’m not at all certain whether Rath is actually present at the moment, but I keep that tidbit to myself.
The host suddenly stumbles back from her station by the front door, as if she’s just caught sight of the huge dragon blocking the entrance with his sinuous body. If ‘sinuous’ is the right description for a beast the length of two city buses.
The other patrons, most of them nulls, murmured at the floor briefly shaking — the moment the dragon landed, I assume — but haven’t noticed the terrifying shifter barring the front of the restaurant.
Yet. Hopefully, anyone outside had already dashed inside their homes or the resort cabins at the onset of the downpour, before the dragon made his appearance.
Not that it’s a high-traffic area to begin with.
We’re all still sitting in that pocket of torrential rain. The dragon blinks at me, slowly. I shift, and Gigi obligingly stands so I can slip past her. The combat mage doesn’t take her eyes off the creature pressed against the window, though.
Bellamy cracks into the last claw of her crab, feigning indifference, though I can feel her gathering essence to her. Apparently, she’s used the last three months to figure out how to pull power without shedding her blood or the blood of her victims. Good.
Offering the host a slight smile that doesn’t do anything to ease her terrified, wide-eyed gaze, I cross to and through the front door. I can only get the door open far enough to shimmy through it, but the dragon shifts back enough from the building that I can walk alongside it.
I probably shouldn’t touch him without explicit permission, but I can’t help but run my hand along his long body as I make my way to his head. Those huge amber eyes fix to me. Essence roils under my palm, and though I’m still mostly under the eaves of the building, rainwater slicks the dragon.
The beast shuffles farther back, bowing his huge head over me as I continue to peer up at him, eye to eye. Well, both my eyes to one of his.
His left antler has been snapped off at the base.
I reach up, and he bows his head enough that I can touch the puckered but healed skin surrounding what should be the jagged edges of the antler.
It’s been smoothed over, as if Rath had someone sand it down so he wouldn’t inadvertently hurt anyone while it regrows.
Not anyone … me.
Because the other intact antler is still a deadly weapon. And I might be the only person Rath might want to approach in a nonaggressive manner while in his dragon form.
I slide my hand down until I’m pressing my palm to his face, raising the other hand to mirror the first. The dragon peers down at me. The rain dripping from him falls on my upturned face like tears.
“Hello, mate,” I whisper. Then I press my body into him, holding as much of him to me as I can reach. So mostly his neck and a little of his chest.
The dragon rumbles agreeably, tucking me under his chin. That noise, and the essence captured within it, vibrates through me. And I realize how grounded I feel, how safe. This creature of wind and air, of rainstorms and foggy mornings, feels like home.
I’m not certain I’ve ever known what home actually feels like. I can sense the dragon’s power, but I can also feel how we connect on a fundamental level as we stand chest to chest. The soul bond is a pool of warmth between us.
“I was so worried,” I whisper. “When I saw you fall and I had no idea if you were hurt. Let’s try to not do that again, okay?”
The dragon rumbles, sounding just a little pissed. And of course, I know his perspective of those events — me getting kidnapped — so I understand the change in tenor.
Unfortunately, the essence that underlies that pissiness also vibrates against the glass window behind me, reminding me of our audience — all the vulnerable people in the restaurant just trying to enjoy a nice meal.
Injury by celestial dragon, intentional or not, would be seriously bad for the business that Rath has just reopened.
I step back from the dragon, pressing my cheek to his face and whispering playfully, “Are you hunting me?”
Energy sparks behind his eyes, something smug about the expression.
“Oh?” I tease, easing back another step. “Think you’ve caught me?”
Those huge amber eyes narrow.
I meet Cay’s gaze through the window, offering her a smile so she knows, and can tell the others, that I’m okay.
Then I take off.
The dragon might be a great hunter from the sky, but unless he wants to destroy the cars in the lot as well as part of the building, I’m quicker than him on two human feet. For a moment, anyway.
Still radiating warmth and comfort, the soul bond stretches between us. Then it abruptly cinches tighter, as if the dragon is attempting to pull me back to him through that thick rope of universe-forged essence.
But as the universe already knows and likely despairs of on a continual basis, I’m not so easily wrangled.
Instantly soaked within the localized thunderstorm, I race through the cars in the parking lot, running for the short set of stairs that lead to the beach.
After stumbling a few steps through the still-soft sand — the rain hasn’t fully penetrated the ground yet — I yank off my shoes.
I run full tilt in the opposite direction from the resort and the restaurant.
The tide is higher than before, forcing me to zigzag through the pilings under the front of the restaurant, splashing through the long eddies of the surf. The water is only ankle high, but I really don’t want to get caught by a rogue wave and dragged out to sea.
The cu-sith is nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, as I don’t need him joining this hunt. Though having a mythical grim reaper randomly wandering the neighborhood isn’t a great alternative.
I keep running. My breathing is ragged, my hair and dress soaked through.
The dragon comes for me. But the beast hasn’t bothered with twining around cars or pylons. Instead, he’s taken to the air, then the sea.
The massive celestial dragon rolls out of the thundering surf on my right, shooting up onto the beach to block my path.
I shriek playfully and try to veer around him.
The bond between us crackles — then as if suddenly anchored fully, it pulses with pure essence. As if all it took to fulfill that potential between us was for us to play together. Or, perhaps more fundamentally, more primally, for the beast to chase and capture … me. His soul-bound mate.
I stumble, feet sliding in the sand as I accept the energy shifting between us, opening myself up to it wholly. Accepting and welcoming the intense connection and trying to radiate my own energy back at the dragon.
More essence contracts behind me. I hear bones shift and snap painfully.
I spin back, and it’s wholly human arms that wrap about me, lifting me off my feet.
I kick and flail. Laughter is wrenched from me as I’m twisted in the air and then gathered against a very wet, very large, very naked body.
Amber-ringed hazel eyes capture my attention a moment before a hot mouth crashes over mine.
I melt into his verging-on-too-tight embrace, opening my mouth to his — as I opened my soul to the dragon — and just letting myself savor his touch, his taste.
Tangling my tongue through his, I suck on his lower lip. He moans.
Rath.
More essence, more energy twines around us, hiding us from prying eyes even as Rath pulls back just enough to press his forehead to mine and peer down into my eyes. Always checking, even when being completely overbearing, to see if I’m okay.
If I’m with him.
I press my hands to his face, holding him as I held the dragon. The amber is still in his eyes, both my mates present for this moment.
“Hello, mate,” I whisper a second time.
Rath closes his eyes, and a terrible shudder racks through his huge body — grief, anger, fear? His hands grip me harder, tugging me impossibly closer.
Then his mouth is over mine again. I cling to him, utterly needy and greedy. Another intense pulse of essence shifts between us, feeding into me, then back out to him. His power is staggering.
Rath pulls back, almost forcefully. And I know, even before the words start pouring from his mouth, that his brain has caught up to the moment.
“Never again, Tempest. Never fucking again!”