Vixen (7 page)

Which they can’t do if they don’t know I’m here.

And they don’t know I’m here, but I don’t dare admit as much to Ion, do I?

I stand up as tall as I can. “Of course they know I’m here.”

“You’re lying. You’ve been lying to me all visit long,
Vivica
. I can tell.”

Can he really tell, or is he only calling my bluff to see if I get twitchy?

This is no time to get twitchy.

I harden my glare. Rosy eyes can turn icy, too. “I am not lying. They do
so
know I’m here.”

“To fetch the artifact?” Ion raises an eyebrow that says he’s caught me.

I stare him down, narrowing my eyes as I try to think. Come on, there’s got to be a way out of this. But what? I’ve already denied there was an artifact. If I go back and say there is, I’ll have to admit I was lying when I said there wasn’t. Either way, I have to admit I lied, which only proves Ion right.

Meanwhile, Ion has grown tired of playing stare-eyes. “Why are you here?”

I purse my lips and try to think of a good reason. “Jala wants a vacation—”

“Don’t.” Ion throws his hands into the air and takes a few steps away from me. “Don’t mock me. I have been nothing but generous to you. I showed you my study. We went in the nursery—a door I should have kept closed forever. Did you come to see if I’m a threat? Are you going to report back that I am a pitiful, miserable excuse for a dragon? Is your family going to sit around the dinner table and laugh at how pathetic I’ve become?” He paces as he talks, not looking at me directly until the very end, when he meets my eyes. “I just want the truth.”

How can I lie to him after that? Everything he’s just said is true—save for the projections of what I might do, and his self-assessment. He is not pathetic or pitiful. If he’s miserable, well, I’d be miserable, too, if I was alone for so long.

He deserves the honest truth.

“Ion?”

“Hmm?”

“My family knows nothing of this visit. It was all my idea.”

“Why did you come?” He steps closer to me. His eyes are no longer so cold. Does he believe me? I think so.

My voice is quieter. It’s difficult to admit something like this in a loud voice. It’s not something I’m proud of, not something I want the world to know. “I came here because you’re the only eligible male dragon in all the world. I had no other choice, not unless I want to remain single forever.” My gaze is fixed on his face, which looks almost bewildered, so I spell it out as clearly as I can. “I came here to seduce you.”

Something snaps like lightning behind his eyes. He doesn’t move, but his voice goes frigid. “You need to leave. Now.”

Clearly there’s been a misunderstanding. I shake my head. “I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just mean—”

“It doesn’t matter how you mean it. What you’re proposing can never be. It’s late. You need to go and never return.” His voice has gentled slightly, but his eyes are still snapping with a fury akin to terror.

“But I had a very pleasant visit—”

“That is irrelevant.”

“I want to see you again.”

“It is impossible.”

“No, it’s not.” I might be sort of starting to hyperventilate. Does Ion have any idea what he’s saying? What he’s denying me? “Look, I understand that I upset you. I’m sorry.”

“None of that matters. You need to go.”

“I can’t just
not
see you ever again, okay? I care about you.”

That got his attention. He looks like he’s seething, or something. “You cannot possibly. You don’t know who I am. We’ve spent one evening together. One. And that’s all we’ll ever spend. Now, if you won’t go, I will.” With that, Ion turns on his heel, marches back into the ballroom, and closes the door behind him, leaving me on the balcony alone.

I run up behind him and grab the door handles, but by the time I try to turn them, he’s already got them locked.

“You can’t just leave me out here!” I yell, hoping he can hear me through the glass. If not, he should be able to read the words clearly on my lips. “You told Jala you’d walk me home!”

Ion pulls the draperies closed. The many yards of silk flutter and float, settling into place over the windows so I can’t see him.

I stare at the windows, trying to decide what to do. I could break the glass, but the windows are so lovely, I don’t want to destroy them. Besides, what would it gain me?

I stomp toward the railing and look out at the valley below. What now? Am I supposed to turn into a dragon and fly away? I don’t really want to do that, because turning into a dragon means growing too big for these clothes, which means I’d either have to split them out at the seams so they’d be ruined, or strip down to my bloomers right here on the balcony. Neither of those appeals to me.

I turn back to face the windows. The other curtains aren’t pulled closed yet, and I can see the candlelight from the candelabra on the piano. Ion wouldn’t leave the candles burning unattended, so he must still be in there. But where? I can’t see him. The only place he could possibly be is right on the other side of the door he closed, behind the curtains.

Why is he still standing there? Is he having second thoughts about shutting me out?

I hurry over and stand in front of the door again, shouting so he can hear me through the glass. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this! I care about you. Do you want a child to play with those blocks in the nursery? Do you want to be alone forever? I am not your enemy. Whatever my parents did, that was a long time ago. I am not my parents. Do you hear me? I am not my parents and you can’t just shut me out of your life because of whatever happened—”

“Be quiet!” Ion opens the door just wide enough to stick his face out and hiss at me. “Don’t you know there are yagi around? Keep your voice down.”

I pounce on the crack and stick my arm through so he can’t shut it again. (Really, does he not remember I have four siblings? This is not my first shouted-from-the-other-side-of-a-closed-door conversation.) “Let me in. Please? I can explain.”

“There’s nothing you could possibly explain that would in any way change anything.” Ion’s got the door held firmly in place, so that I can’t get it open any more, but neither is he smashing my arm, though he’d have every right to, I suppose.

“Why?” I’ve got my face against the crack, now. With one eye, I can see his face, all furious and purse-lipped above me. “You knew who I was when I got here, but you let me in. Fed me supper—thank you, by the way, in case I didn’t say it enough before. All that time you thought I wanted to steal from you, but the moment I confess I actually want to love you, you kick me out.”

“Don’t say that word. Don’t ever say that word again.”

“Love?” Any doubt I might have harbored about which word he meant is dashed by the look on his face. I could have punched him and he wouldn’t look so pained. “What’s wrong with
love
, Ion?”

“Just go.” He’s pleading now, and his hold on the door has loosened a bit.

I suppose I’d have to be a real jerk to take advantage of his momentary weakness and push my way in now.

But I’ve already lied to him half a dozen times, so what’s one more jerkish thing? I give the door one sudden, hefty shove, simultaneously slipping through the gap before Ion slams it shut again.

He looks at me with pure, simmering resentment. “For your information, I was perfectly happy before you arrived.”

“Happy?” I raise a challenging eyebrow.

“Content.” He’s seething at me, all hundred-year-old-dragon-man and dude-who’s-only-my-age rolled into one.

It’s a fascinating combination. “I’m not content, Ion. I want a family. I want my kids to grow up alongside their cousins—”

“That is precisely why you need to leave here now.” Ion’s not so much shouting, as just speaking with an intensity that buries my words. “If you and I—” He throws his hands into the air and laughs, as though the very idea is unspeakably absurd. “Your parents loathe, despise, hate, and fear me. Your father has vowed to kill me on sight. There can never be anything between us. To pretend otherwise is to invite heartbreak.”

“My mother doesn’t loathe you.”

“How do you know?”

“I quizzed her all about you. She claims you’re evil and out to kill us all, but at the same time, she admits she was never sure about that.”

Ion’s expression softens slightly. “Never sure?”

“My dad loathes you, and my mom listens to my dad, but she has her reservations.”

Ion’s listening, open-mouthed, but then he clamps his mouth shut, grabs me by the wrist, and crosses the room. “This is absurd. I should not even be listening.” He lifts the candelabra from off the piano and heads for the door to the hall, towing me not-too-unwillingly after him.

“Where are we going?”

“To the front door. I realized once I’d shut you outside, I’d put you in an awkward position. That was not my intention. I was reacting to unforeseen circumstances. You can leave by the main entrance.”

“You told Jala you’d walk me home.”

“I told Jala I’d walk Vivica home. You’ll have to give her my regrets. I can’t be rid of you soon enough.” We’re walking through the halls at a brisk pace, down stairs and toward the front entrance. At this rate, we’ll be there any second.

“Why not?”

“You just need to leave.”

“Why?” We’re in the foyer. I’ve got seconds, maybe only milliseconds left. I may never get another chance like this, so I’ll have to hit it with all I’ve got. “Is it because I make you feel things you don’t want to feel? Are you afraid of falling in love?”

Somewhere about midsentence, he shoves me out the door.

The last glimpse I have of his face says I’m right.

I’m exactly right.

Small comfort as I walk myself home.

I stomp a couple hundred yards down the path, pausing now and again to turn back just in case Ion has come to his senses and opened the door again. But no, the place is closed up tight.

Then I realize it’s the middle of the dark Siberian night, and Jala’s probably sick with worry, so I pull out my phone and call her.

“Are you dead?” She asks instead of saying hello.

“Why? Is that the only reasonable excuse for calling so late?”

“No. The other would be that you’ve convinced Ion to fall in love with you.”

“Oh, he’s in love all right. Or something like that.”

“I’m confused.”

“So am I. Things were going really well, and then Ion seemed to panic. He told me to leave.”

“Any idea why he panicked?”

“I told him why I was really there.”

“Zilpha!”

“It’s okay. I think it was the right thing to do, except for the part where he threw me out. But the real takeaway is that I think he likes me, he’s just terrified about admitting it because my dad wants to kill him, and everyone he’s ever cared about has died, leaving him alone and brokenhearted in a big empty castle, haunted by his failed dreams of happiness.”

“I didn’t actually follow all that.”

“I’ll explain it to you tomorrow. I’m exhausted. I’m halfway back to the cabin now. I’ll be there in a bit. Leave the porch light on for me?”

“It’s on now. But do be careful. The yagi are probably out, especially at this time of night.”

The moment Jala says
yagi
, I smell them, and I remember. I’m supposed to be careful of yagi, because they’re bred to kill dragons, and I don’t even have my swords with me. How stupid of me for not being more careful! Just when I was starting to feel smart for figuring out why Ion threw me out.

I open my mouth to tell Jala I’ve got to go, but the words won’t come. It’s like my mouth is frozen. My body is frozen where I’d stopped the instant I smelled them.

I stopped.

No, no, no, no, no! That’s the last thing you’re supposed to do when yagi are around, because they let off these wailing noises that induce neurological paralysis if you stop moving long enough for them to take effect.

Which I apparently have.

The only thing I can move are my eyes. I’m half-turned, looking back over my shoulder as I did when I first caught a whiff of the yagi, and if I strain my eyes in that direction, I can see them coming.

I try to change into a dragon, but nothing happens. I’ve never
not
been able to change before. Do the yagi wails affect that, too? That would have been helpful to know ahead of time.

I’ve got to overcome this. I will my body to move. Come on! There has to be a way to make myself move, to overcome this stupid, stupid…how could I be so stupid?

In the distance, beyond the yagi, I can see Ion’s castle. He’s on the balcony. He sees me. For an instant, terror crosses his face, and then he disappears.

Pain shoots through my arm. For all the numbness of my paralysis, I feel the pain coursing through me with vehemence.

Suddenly Ion is in front of me, swords drawn, fighting the yagi off.

Did I miss something? I could have sworn he was on his balcony not a second ago. Even if he changed into a dragon and flew down here, that would take a good fraction of a minute, maybe a full minute or more.

And he’s still fully dressed in his smoking jacket, decapitating yagi all around me until the air is full of the stink of their noxious bodily fluids, and the wailing noise finally ceases, and I can move.

“Ahh!” My vocal chords finally free, I let loose a strangled scream that’s part pent-up fear, part pain from whatever happened to my arm. “My arm!”

“What’s wrong?” Ion casts one last look around to make sure there are no other yagi, then turns his full attention on me. “Your arm?”

My mouth is open in a silent scream of pain as I attempt to turn my arm to see the back side. Something cut me or grazed me or set the back of my arm on fire. It’s like a hundred zillion stinging nettles, except they’re not content to just sting the surface. The pain is shooting through me, down my arm and through my body.

Ion sets his swords down and takes gentle hold of my wrist, angling my arm so we can both see the gash in the moonlight.

He sniffs it.

A look passes over his face. I’d call it regret or horror, but it’s more like the pall of death. I didn’t know until I saw it on his face that the pall of death had a look, but there it is.

“What is it?”

“The yagi have a neurotoxin in the spines on their arms and legs.” Ion sounds sick, utterly sick.

I’ve heard of it, of course. I’ve been trained to avoid it. I should have avoided it. I know better, obviously. I mean, sure, we’ve always bested the yagi, and maybe I’ve underestimated how dangerous they really are because of that, but none of them have ever touched me before. None of them have ever touched any of us, because you can’t let them touch you, or something like this might happen.

“They injected their venom into my arm?” I ask, meeting Ion’s eyes.

“Yes.” He drops my arm and pulls off his jacket.

“But, it’s fatal. It’s always fatal. It killed my grandmother, my parents’ dog, some old dragon my sister-in-law knew…” My voice fades.

Ion’s stripping off his shirt. For a second or two I wonder if maybe he’s going to use the shirt as a tourniquet, or something. But mostly I’m thinking that I’m going to die.

I’m going to die.

I have, at best, a few days left to live.

This is not going to improve relations between Ion and my parents.

Ion’s stripped down to his boxer shorts. “I’m going to turn into a dragon. Can you hold on to my back?”

I want to change into a dragon, to show him that it’s not necessary for him to carry me, but when I try, nothing happens. It’s just like when I tried to change when the yagi wails had frozen me, except I’m not frozen now, but I still can’t change.