Vixen (15 page)

Up to this moment, my father’s been fuming angry. Ion’s words push him over a furious edge. He grabs Ion by the neck and lifts him up off the bench. “You will not lie to me in my own home!”

Ion’s face is red, but somehow he manages to speak. “This is a dungeon. It’s not your home.” He lifts an eyebrow, as if daring my father to assert that the dungeon is, in fact, his home.

I pick up the mutton pan, ready to wield it like a shield if I need to—not because it’s likely to prove to be a good weapon, but because it’s the only thing I’ve got. I can’t turn into a dragon. The knife and fork I’ve been using on the mutton are useless against dragon scales—only dragon horns and talons can penetrate dragon armor. I’d be more apt to injure myself than help Ion.

Besides, I really don’t want to hurt anybody. I love my dad, even if he can be a thick-skulled throwback to ancient dragon times. And I want to protect Ion, even if he seems determined to provoke my father to greater anger.

Dad shakes Ion. “You will not lie to me on my property.”

“It’s not a lie.” In spite of the fact that his eyes are starting to bug out from my dad’s hold on his neck, Ion defends himself vehemently. “Ilsa would probably still be in Prague, or killed by yagi, had it been up to you.”

“Ion, please.” I’m clutching the roast pan with white knuckles.

Dad’s using a similar hold on Ion’s neck.

To be honest, I’m not sure why Ion doesn’t just turn into a dragon right now. Probably because my dad would then turn into a dragon, and I’d have to leave the room to avoid getting flame roasted.

In other words: for me.

“He’s right.” My mom announces.

Her words surprise my dad so much, he lowers his arms far enough for Ion to support his weight on the iron bench again. Also, though it might only be my imagination, I think Dad has loosened his hold somewhat on Ion’s neck. Anyway, Ion’s face seems less red and his eyes, not so buggy.

Dad gives Mom a sideways look. “Ilsa?”

“He’s the reason we left Prague. He kept us from going out of our way through Istanbul.” Mom gestures in the direction of Turkey. “He kept us moving.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“I did not.”

“You killed my dog.”

“It was an accident.”

“You are a liar.”

Ion shrugs as if conceding the point. “Do you want to hear my side of the story, or not?”

Dad narrows his eyes at Ion. For a moment, I’m afraid they’re going to keep bickering, but instead Dad makes a sort of growling noise in the back of his throat that seems to tell Ion to get on with it.

Like I said before, Ion is way more civilized than my father.

“I didn’t have a name or location,” Ion launches back into his story as though my father had never interrupted him. “But I was determined to find Elmir’s daughter and woo her. I didn’t know the identity of her betrothed, though of course, since I didn’t know of any other single male dragons, it had occurred to me Ram might be the man. But then, why wouldn’t Elmir simply come out and say so?” Ion shrugs, as if to say the answer to the question no longer matters.

He continues. “I figured the yagi would be hunting her, so I followed them. That is the one lucky advantage I have, being Eudora’s neighbor. They don’t purposely hurt me. I can get close to them without endangering myself. In retrospect, this aura of safety caused me to make cavalier choices. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Ion frowns. “I found some interesting things on my travels. While I didn’t see any dragons in dragon form, there were individuals who I wouldn’t mind investigating further. I learned many things about yagi and their behavior, about Eastern Europe during that tumultuous time. I traveled back and forth, trailing yagi until I found only males wherever they ended up, so that I had to go back, find more yagi, and follow them again.

“To be honest, I don’t think the yagi knew anything about Ilsa. One of them must have caught her scent that summer in Prague. By the time I arrived, the yagi were beginning to gather in droves. They were focused on the butcher shop. I watched until I saw Ram, who I almost didn’t recognize with his full beard. When I saw Ilsa, I was very confused.”

“Confused?” Mom sounds confused, too. “Why?”

“I had a photograph of your mother, which I had taken from Eudora. I could see the resemblance, but…”

“But what?” Mom urges.

“I didn’t smell the scent.”

I gasp. “The mate scent?”

Ion nods. “I was confused. Granted, I had only smelled it once before, with Faye. But she was the only female I’d known, besides Eudora, since I was a young teen. And since Eudora was very old, presumably past the age of childbearing, I had assumed the mate scent was something I would smell whenever I was in the presence of a potential mate.”

“You didn’t smell it at all?” Mom clarifies.

“You smelled nice. But then, you worked at a butcher shop. Those smells make me hungry. They’re not entirely different instincts, you know.” Ion blinks at the ceiling. “I began to second-guess myself. Had I really smelled what I thought I smelled with Faye, or had my memories become embellished with the passing of time? At first, I thought I needed to draw closer to you. The smell might be stronger up close?”

“Was it?” Mom asks.

Ion shakes his head. “But by then, I’d met you and spoken with you enough to know you were the dragon I sought. And of course, Ram’s presence confirmed who you were. So what could I do? I proceeded with my plan. It occurred to me, they might have done something to obscure your scent. But that did not explain why the yagi were able to find you.”

“Maybe they were following my dad?” I suggest.

Ion laughs. “That could be. But no, I have now smelled you, and I am convinced of the difference. That Elmir would smell the scent with both Faye and Zhi, and that your brothers would one of them smell a female, and the other, not…it all points to this: the scent is a biological function, pointing dragons to potential mates. Males smell it in the presence of a dragon female whose genes would be a good fit with his. It does not select for us one soul mate in all the course of time. Given the length of our lifetimes, that might bind us to many years of widowhood.” He shrugs. “No, I now believe the reason I did not smell the mate scent with Ilsa, is that she was not right for me.”

Dad’s been glaring angrily through most of Ion’s story. At his point, he gestures toward the ceiling. “
Now
you believe it?”

“Yes,” Ion confirms. “Now that I have met Zilpha, I can say with all honestly my attraction to Ilsa was fueled purely by my hope to find a mate, and not any unique connection between us. But at the time, more than twenty years ago, I did not understand about the scent. I only knew that I wanted a mate. I felt Elmir had betrayed me. More than that, I felt Ilsa had been betrayed by both Ram and her father.”

“
I
betrayed her?” Dad bellows. “How?”

“You told her nothing of who she was. She didn’t even know how to find her home.”

“That was for her own safety, so that she would not try to sneak away home on her own.”

“You accuse me of lying.” Ion glares at my dad. “Yet you kept from Ilsa information she had a right to know. How is that different?”

Dad’s face turns a furious red, but he doesn’t answer—presumably because he doesn’t have a good answer.

Ion continues. “I wanted a mate. Here was this lovely dragon girl who had been banished from her homeland through no fault of her own, who had been deliberately kept in the dark about essential aspects of her own identity. I felt it was my duty to help her. And yes, in some romantic way, I believed she would repay me with her love.”

Mom’s face has gone sort of soft, like it does during the romantic scenes of movies, or whenever she talks about her grandbabies who are soon to hatch.

But Dad has also seen that mom’s face has gone soft. He raises one finger toward Ion. “For your information,” Dad over-articulates each word, “I was unaware of the extent of Ilsa’s ignorance.”

Mom places a hand on Dad’s shoulder. “You assumed my father had told me about my mother, about the yagi. He has since admitted that he should have told me those things, but his grief at losing my mother made it difficult for him to speak about it. And once he sent me away to school, he never felt safe speaking of her, not out there, in the wide world, where anyone might have followed him and anyone might overhear.”

Ion looks up at Mom patiently. “I am sorry for your father’s loss. In retrospect, I can understand his silence. But at the time, I felt indignant on your behalf. My sense of the injustice I felt you had suffered, caused me to wish to defend you—to rescue you.”

“Dragons don’t like to be rescued,” I whisper quietly beside him.

Though I didn’t intend the words for him—I was only thinking out loud—Ion takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.

“Precisely. Dragons do not like being rescued. Nor did I want your mother to feel helpless in the course of the events that beset us. That is why I was so upset by the ignorance that was imposed upon her—because it made her dependent upon Ram. That’s why I did what I did.”

Ion looks at Mom.

Mom blinks. “Why you did what?”

“When we were encamped and I led you away from Ram. Partly it was because I wanted to get you away from him. Partly, I did not agree with his chosen route.”

Dad butts in. “You would have taken us through Russia!”

“Russia was safer.”

“You were trying to steal her away from me!”

Mom puts a hand up between Ion and Dad. “This argument was old twenty years ago.” Then she looks straight at Ion. “You led me away from Ram. The yagi attacked me and you made me fight them alone. I thought you were trying to have them kill me.”

“I still think that!” Dad notes.

“I did not realize how very ignorant you were of the yagi.” Ion’s eyes snap with old anger. “Ram told me you’d been training. I assumed you could fight them off—and you did. You needed to learn those skills. I did not let them hurt you.”

“You didn’t fight them with me.” Mom looks like she’s fighting still—fighting whether to believe Ion’s explanation. “You did nothing to protect me.”

“My only advantage against the yagi is that they know my scent. Eudora has trained them to leave me alone
so long as I do not fight them
. If I’d have fought them with you…”

Mom has her hands over her face. She shakes her head and pulls her hands away. Her hands are trembling. “I was so scared.”

Ion looks up at her. His expression is not defensive or angry or haughty. It’s mostly apologetic. “So was I.”

The dungeon falls silent.

Dad’s face is still red. I’m pretty sure he’s fighting the urge to kill Ion with his bare hands. The only thing that’s stayed him thus far is his curiosity about what Ion has to say. The longer Ion talks, the more that curiosity is appeased. Soon there won’t be any reason for Dad not to kill him.

That makes me nervous.

The chime of Mom’s phone pierces the silence, echoing loudly against the stone walls, floor, and ceiling. “It’s my dad.” She peeks at the screen before answering. “I wonder if Zhi—Dad? What’s up?”

Hoping for more information about Mom’s Zhi comment, I shoot my Dad a questioning look.

He steps closer to me and whispers, “Zhi is expecting to lay an egg any day now. Your mother has been worried because Zhi is a tiny woman, and has had a difficult gestation thus far—”

“Of course. I’ll be right there. Love you!” Mom ends the call and looks at us. “Zhi’s having trouble. Dad’s really shaken up. I’m the only one nearby who’s laid an egg before.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. She could probably use help pushing from the outside.”

“Pushing from the outside?” I repeat incredulously. I don’t know anything about egg-laying—I was only two when Mom laid my little brother’s egg, and I wasn’t around when my sister Wren or my sister-in-law Nia laid their eggs. I got the impression it wasn’t difficult for them. Of course, Zhi
is
tiny, even in dragon form. The fact that my grandpa is pretty enormous probably doesn’t help.

“Yes.” Mom gives Dad a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got to hurry and fly over there.” Then she turns to me. “I want you to come.”

“Me?”

“I might need your help.”

“I don’t know anything about egg-laying,” I remind her. But more importantly, “I can’t leave Dad alone with Ion.”

Mom has this look on her face like maybe she wants to tell me something more. Maybe she thinks if I go with her to help Zhi lay her egg, we can have girl time and talk privately about things like me and Ion.

While I’d love to hear whatever insights Mom might have about Ion, and while I really do hope Zhi gets that egg laid without further difficulty, I don’t think I’d be any help to Zhi.

And there’s simply no way I’m going to leave Ion alone with Dad. They’ve each very nearly killed the other once before, and they’re both worked up enough right now, either of them might try to finish the job.

“I can’t go. Take Dad. He can help—”

“We’re not leaving
you
alone with Ion,” Dad shouts down my suggestion before I’m even done speaking.