Not His Dragon (10 page)

“Hey.” She yanked her hand away. “Watch who you’re poking.”

Enough was enough. He’d believed her story of shifter ancestry until now. Healing that quickly was impossible for someone with mostly human genes. He’d have to look at Angie with a spell to truly see what she was made of. Cringing, he shifted his eyes from human to dragon. Magical vision allowed him see magic such auras around life forms and spells. In a city the size of New Port the light from so much living energy was blinding.  Not to mention the headache he’d suffer. He spoke the spell to open his magical vision. He blinked and almost shouted “
A-ha
.” While pointing at Angie.

Definitely dragon. How could she not know, and why couldn’t he sense her magic? He should have done this the day they met, but it always left his head pounding for days. He looked closer. What was that? Something surrounded her body like a thin film of oil. This time he did gasp. He’d never seen anything more evil or devastating.

The light from her aura reached out to the natural magic of the world but they didn’t connect. This shield prevented Angie from touching magic. No wonder she thought she was human.

He clasped her hand and shook it as she leaned up for a kiss.

She jerked away. “Oh.” She stared at their clasped hands and shook back as he bent to return her kiss too late.

He kissed her forehead instead. “Well shit, this is awkward.”

She giggled. “I’ll take a rain check. We’ll try again tomorrow.” She opened the door to her building and turned to enter.

He followed on her heels and slapped her ass before the door closed. She gave a surprised yell from the other side.

“Night, toots,” he called through the door. Grinning, he returned to his bike. So she already planned to see him tomorrow.

Chapter Fifteen

Dragons didn't require sleep as mortals did. Eoin could go days without, but like most of his kind, he enjoyed a good nap. Dreams could be as good as memories. The older a dragon grew, the more he retreated from reality. That’s why most of his people lived away from human civilization. Too much change too fast.

Eoin found human culture fascinating, though. One moment they were wearing white wigs and the next they were painting flowers on their cheeks, having sex in the fields. Time worked different for them somehow. He envied them. For the last half century, he’d felt stuck in place. How did Angie cope as a dragon who thought she was human? Did time move the same for her? She obviously was young but she always seemed to be in a hurry. Very undragon-like behavior.

He squashed his cigarette under his boot and watched the junkyard dog rush out of his shelter. A fence protected the animal from him. This would be a good time for him to stop obsessing over Angie. She’d already given him a migraine with her aura. He had to put her out of his mind and concentrate on obtaining the material he needed for his sculptures if he was ever going to give this a full-hearted try.

The only thing that had given him solace over the last century was art. He could understand the evolution of an artist’s skill. The statue Lorenzo and Roger had fawned over was a new direction in his work. This step could change everything.

Nausea rolled his stomach. This could be the start of new and exciting things, a fresh branch sprouting along the path of his long life. Like most green stems it was fragile and could snap at the wrong move. The urge to vomit struck him hard. Thank goodness, he’d given Angie his dinner and his stomach was empty.

There wasn’t anyone around to witness him puking except the dog. It barked at him through the chain link fence, saliva foaming at its mouth. Eoin gave him a small smile and tossed a huge, thick steak over the top. He waited until the animal started gnawing before scaling the barrier and landing next to the creature.

The dog gave him a wary glance and whined. Animals always could sense who was the bigger predator even masked by a human-looking body.

Fog had rolled in, clinging to the ground between the piles of scrap metal. It leant the junkyard a mystical feeling, as if Eoin was embarking on a soul-searching quest for treasure, instead of breaking and entering to steal garbage. He chuckled and meandered through the aisles hoping something would give him inspiration. Something he could mold into a reflection of his soul and stir viewer’s emotions, like how Angie’s aura had moved him. He wasn’t asking for a vision of the Holy Mother in a warped bumper. Just
something
…

Anything.

Shoving his hands deep in his pockets, he surveyed the stacks of abandoned vehicles. His view of the world was more two-dimensional, paint and canvas. How did one purposefully create a statue? He’d made the last one using garbage, so it only made sense to create similar objects with the same material.

With the full moon above in the clear night sky, he didn’t need a flashlight to see his surroundings. This part of the yard consisted mostly of things either from vehicles or household appliances. Metal things. Things he could melt with his flame.

Now, fire he could understand.

On a whim, he gathered any part that caught his eye—a car door, rusted fenders, a child’s bike, an old soda dispenser. He dragged them one by one to the front gate, tossing each piece over the fence. He took one more cursory search of the area and spotted the front end of a motorcycle. ‘A death trap,’ Angie had called it. Inspiration struck. He pulled it from the pile and added it to his other things.

The dog finished his meal and came towards him wagging his tail. Kneeling, Eoin gave the pooch a scratch behind its ragged ear before vaulting over the fence and stacking the pile of junk in the back of his pickup truck. He pulled out his cell phone from his back pocket and called Roger.

“Eoin?” His agent sounded as if he’d woken from a dead sleep.

“Hey, I’m at the junk yard.”

“Good for you. Have you any idea what time it is?” Roger yawned.

“Not really.” He’d left Angie on the roof around ten p.m. Eoin glanced at his phone. It was well past midnight. “I’ve taken some materials to work with.”

“I didn’t know they were open so late.” Roger’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“You know they’re not, but I couldn’t wait until morning.”

“Like the rest of us mere mortals.”

Eoin laughed. “You’re cranky when you wake up.”

“Yes, especially when I was having a good sleep. What do you want?”

“Swing by the junk yard and offer the owner payment in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take care of it.” Roger was silent on the other end of the line for a moment. “You think you’ll have those pieces finished in time?”

Eoin scratched his head. “I’ll try my best. You placed me in quite a position.”

“Wait a minute. Are you only starting on them now?”

“I had things to do earlier today.” Things that mattered to him.

“More important than your career?” Roger sounded much more alert.

“My life doesn’t revolve around my art.”

“Since when?”

“I had some…health issues to take care of.” Eoin didn’t like the timetable his agent and dealer had given him. Dragons did not work this way. A day was nothing to him so they should be more than happy if he accomplished anything on deadline.

“I didn’t know dragons could get sick. Are you all right?” Roger grew quiet.

“We don’t get sick. We do need to do some maintenance and I have been neglecting myself these last few years.” He rubbed the back of his neck. The last thing he needed was Roger to start mother-hen-ing him. “Just take care of the junkyard owner, okay?”

“You can count on me. G’night.”

Eoin hung up and stuck his phone back in his pocket. Jumping into his truck, he headed home. He’d already set up a space in his castle on the first floor where he could blow his fire without burning down the roof and not have to carry this load of junk to the top of his tower. His stomach grew sourer as he drew closer to home. He hadn’t a fucking clue what to do with all this crap in his truck bed. How was he supposed to concentrate on creating something from scrap when he couldn’t stop seeing Angie’s aura in his mind’s eye? What was stopping her from shifting? How could she not know that she was pure dragon? How did human parents get hold of a dragon baby? Angie was such a puzzle.

Eoin shook her clear of his mind. He had so much to do and so little time to do it. Undressing, he tossed his clothes to the far corner, not wanting to scorch them with his flame. He dragged pieces of metal scrap together, separating them in piles, and shifted to dragon form. With a deep breath, he let loose his fire and watched as the middle group changed from dull gray to glowing red.

The statue that Lorenzo was fond of had been created by just the heat in the room, not direct flame. It was too late for him to change his approach and he watched the metal melt into a gooey mass. With his tail, he beat the shapeless blob, trying to mold it as if it were clay.

God only knew how long he worked in this manner.

Fire. More smashing. More flame. Until at last, he stood before a crazy lump of
Megatron
shit. The piece should be titled “Desperation”.

His chest ached with each dry breath. He hadn’t blown this much flame in ages. Not since his last battle. There’d been so much destruction, he’d almost wept. Dragons, as a whole, sometimes forgot their overall goal during a campaign until things went south. That fight had gone straight to hell.

With legs wide apart, he took another deep breath and blew. Smoke emerged from his throat and nothing else. He coughed and coughed again, choking on his own exhaust. That was disconcerting. He cleared his throat and made another attempt to set his work on fire.

Nothing, not even a spark. Eoin leaned the side of his face against the sizzling hot stone floor and caught his breath. His chest grew heavier and his lungs felt full of sand. Had he lost his flame? He shifted to human form. What would he do now? Maybe he’d over-taxed his system.

He stalked toward the hot watery metal, swung back his right arm, and punched it. The intense heat sizzled against his flesh and he savored the sensation. He was fireproof, so he struck again and again. The molten metal couldn’t hurt his flesh even though it stung.

Falling to his knees, Eoin ran his sore hands over the stubble on his head and stared at what he’d done. He’d made his first sculpture out of rage so it only made sense he made the others in the same manner.

Torn and raw inside, he shifted back to dragon and bit the first lump using his teeth until only sharp angry bites remained in the metal. He used tail and claw. Standing, he hit the metal until they had cooled enough to resist molding.

Eoin shifted to human and sat hard on the floor. He didn’t know how long he stared at his vicious sculptures. This wasn’t what he wanted to share with the world. Anger? Violence? How predictably dragon of him.

Inching his way, he rose to his feet and abandoned the room. Turning his back on what was supposed to be his new medium, he escaped to the top of his tower and his easel. He rested his hands on the cross member under a new canvas and closed his eyes. If Lorenzo and Roger were trying to drive him insane then they’d done it.

Outside the window, the morning sun crested the horizon. Shades of pink bled to dark blue as the light chased away the night. The variance of colors reminded Eoin of Angie’s aura. Grabbing his palette, he equipped it with the paint colors he would need and began stroking canvas with loving caresses of his brush. Out of the corner of his eye, he continued to watch the sunrise.

Angie was the new sun in his life. She brought light to his darkness. He continued to paint from memory, but capturing that moment when he’d first glimpsed her aura was harder than he’d thought. He needed another look because it was very difficult to see the details of magic in the city. Whatever kept Angie from shifting, they would destroy it together, even if she didn’t harbor the same burning need to be with him. His gaze wandered back to the painting. Now this was beauty. What he’d made downstairs was pure, unadulterated, raw emotion. He obviously couldn’t understand what people wanted. Maybe he should just cancel the show and give up on art.

Chapter Sixteen

The morning sun shone bright and the air still held last night’s crispness. Eoin stared out the window, wiping the paint from his hands. He’d worked all night yet felt like he hadn’t accomplished much—neither sleep, nor inspired masterpiece—but had managed to destroy his ability to blow flame. Only time would tell if it would return on its own. He would wait a very long time before crawling back to his clan seeking assistance. He could almost hear his brothers’ laughter already.

His gaze wandered to his latest painting. The colors didn’t do justice to Angie’s aura but nothing in the natural world could mimic magic. His head still hurt from viewing her with his magical vision. He took a puff of his cigarette.

Cool air breezed into his lair and brushed his flesh, tempting him to follow it out into the sky. He should fly. That would clear his head then maybe he could figure out how to explain the truth to Angie. He traced the black line blocking her magic on the painting. Who would cast such an evil spell on a child? She must have been very young, since she’d never shifted. Their gift to become dragon came early, around ten years old.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Angie could fly with him? If he broke this barrier, then she could shift shape. He could think of a few things to try, but they’d need privacy, and he had the perfect place in mind. The media would implode if he dropped in by landing on her roof in full daylight though. They’d be all over her if they discovered he was visiting her. She’d never get a moment’s peace. He snuffed his cigarette out against the stone wall and dropped the remainder back in the pack.

He frowned as he made his way to his bedroom two floors down. He’d go in human form again, then bring her back here so he could shift in private. That meant he should clean his skin of his sweat and stink. He didn’t have time to fly to the lake and wash in dragon form so he’d shower. The bathroom in his bedroom seemed in better condition than the one by his workshop. He washed and dressed, still dripping water. Didn’t he used to own towels? Once inside his garage, he bypassed his bike and jumped into the Aston Martin she had admired yesterday.

Traffic didn’t exist on Saturdays in New Port so it took minutes to arrive at her building. Entering, he scanned the mailboxes fixed inside on the wall. Most were unmarked. Two hung open on their hinges. He grimaced. None of them had Angie’s name listed.

Approaching the closest apartment door, he knocked until it swung open.

A burly male, dressed only in boxers, glared at him. “Man, do you know what time it is?”

“Six a.m. Do you know where Angie lives?”

“Fuck no.” He slammed the door in Eoin’s face.

The dragon narrowed his gaze. If he set fire to the idiot’s home, Angie’s would burn as well. He snarled silently before going to the next door and repeated the process with similar results.

Angie woke to pounding in the hallway. She rolled on her stomach and hugged the pillow over her head. Every few minutes the noise would grow closer with the occasional shout from one of her neighbors. There was a special in hell for those who woke others early on the weekend.

With a groan, she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her clock in disbelief. What asshole was making that racket at 6:20 a.m.? The weekend was sacred, the only part of the week where all she had to do was care for herself.

Except tonight she would still have to care for Eoin’s scale rot, but last night had proven that wasn’t much of a chore. She liked hanging with the dragon. Maybe she’d accept his taunt and undress for him. The thought of Eoin watching her undress sent hot pangs of desire between her thighs.

The pounding started again. She jumped to her feet and stormed to her door. Whoever that asshole was better be wearing kneepads because she’d make him beg for mercy. Swinging the door open, her razor words hung on her tongue. She half expected to taste blood.

Eoin knocked on the neighbor’s door across the hall. He glanced over his shoulder and the best surprised smile bloomed on his face. “There you are.”

She shielded her body with the door. Dirty t-shirt and old boxers were far from lingerie. God, what would he think? “Eoin? What the fuck?”

The neighbor answered the knocking. “What the hell is going on out here?” Mrs. Crane carried her cane two-handed like a baseball bat. Angie had never seen her use it to walk, just to beat people out of her way.

Angie gestured for Eoin to move before the old woman brained him. “Sorry, Mrs. Crane.” She shouted so the old woman could hear. “Wrong door.”

Eoin strode into Angie’s apartment.

She closed the door before Mrs. Crane could follow.

“Are you a hoarder?” He stood in the middle of her kitchen/living room combo assessing her messy home with a critical eye.

“Fuck you, Eoin. What do you want?” She did hoard things and she was a terrible housekeeper. She blamed it on being raised with nothing. Who knew when she’d need a toaster that could set things on fire? What if she wanted to roast marshmallows?

He plucked at the clean laundry on her table until he hung a pair of panties from his finger. “I want to spend the afternoon with you.”

She snatched her underwear from his hold. “You’re several hours early.”

“It’ll take some time to fly to our destination.” His gaze traveled along her torso, pausing at the curve of her hips. “You look nice.” With his fingertips, he tugged at her t-shirt to draw her closer.

A cup of Java couldn’t have revved her pulse like Eoin’s proximity. She set her hands on his chest. If she drew any closer, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions.

“It’s a perfect morning to fly.” His voice had gone husky.

“I need a shower.”

“Shower while I make breakfast.”

Butterflies took wing in her stomach. “Okay, where are we going?”

“Secret dragon place,” he whispered.

Nodding, she backed away to the shower. She couldn’t believe Eoin was in her craptastic apartment. The paint cracks made abstract designs on every wall and they were so thin her whole floor had probably heard them making plans.

She paused in front of the mirror and stifled a scream. Half her hair stood straight up and the other half was plastered to her scalp. He said she looked good. What a fucking liar. She looked like a crackhead after a hard night on the pipe.

The apartment sucked rotten eggs, but the hot water tank did work as long as Mrs. Crane didn’t flush her toilet. She let the shower cascade over her tired body. Flying sounded nice, but how far away would he take her? She didn’t have a passport.

“Angie.”

She jumped and covered her tits even though Eoin couldn’t see through the shower curtain. “Get out!” Thin plastic was the only thing separating them. The air suddenly seemed too heavy with steam.

“You’ve no food. Are you hiding it?”

She hung her head. She budgeted her food money and hadn’t had time to do any grocery shopping this week. It was one of the things on her to-do list. “I have a box of
Pop Tarts
in the cupboard.”

“That’s sad.”

She turned off the water and heard him searching her cupboards. She didn’t buy lots of food because the cockroaches were so big they could carry most of it away.

Wrapping a towel around her body, she hurried to the clean laundry pile on the kitchen table and pulled out fresh clothes. It wasn’t a workday and Eoin was taking her someplace special. This called for a clean, non-stained or torn outfit.

She tossed him a glance.

He leaned on the counter watching her. His heated gaze pulled on her towel, daring her to drop it.

Temptation loosened her grip.

The toaster popped and she shook free of his spell. On the other side of the paper screen separating her studio in two, she dressed quickly.

“Fuck a duck, these things are hot.” Eoin continued swearing under his breath. Pop Tarts could burn like napalm when heated just right. That they could burn a dragon said much of the power of hot sugar.

A setting of paper plates and a stack of freshly warmed prepackaged toaster pastries greeted her return to the kitchen.

Eoin sucked on his finger. “Watch the first bite, they’re hot.”

The scent of fresh coffee called her to breakfast faster. She waited for her stomach to revolt but it remained calm. Maybe her phobia had gone away. That would be so cool. She could finally go to restaurants.

Things like prepackaged food didn’t bother her. The product was made more by machines than by men. Or so she kept telling herself.

She sipped on the cup Eoin offered her. “What should I bring?”

“A sweater. It gets cooler in high altitudes. We’ll drive back to the castle and get a riding harness for you.”

“I’m surprised you have one. I didn’t think dragons would allow riders.”

“I’m not a mount, but I’m practical. If I don’t want to carry a human in my hands, then they need something to keep them from falling off my back.”

“I didn’t use a harness the other night.”

“It was a short trip. This will be longer and higher.”

Her gut clenched. “How high?”

“You’ll still be able to breathe.”

She felt breathless already. “How high can you fly?”

“The jet streams. Around forty-five thousand feet. That’s why most humans can’t spot us. We’re just a speck in the sky.”

“Wow.”

He handed her two Pop Tarts. “Eat on the go. We’ve got lots to do first.”

“Like?”

“For one, stop for provisions. I can’t be expected to survive on this poison.” He flicked her breakfast.

She followed him out of the building. He seemed so animated. The thought warmed her. His mood was infectious. She couldn’t imagine what he planned on showing her.

“Eoin?”

He opened the passenger side door to his car. “What?”

“What’s at this secret dragon place?”

“It’s where we take our young to teach them how to fly.”