Soul of the Dragon (19 page)

“It isn’t that, Alexa.” He looked right into her eyes, and she saw true longing there, and a shadow she knew was his soul, before he’d acted so irrevocably. The Good Mage that lurked behind the evil he’d turned to.
 

He sighed and looked down at his fists wrapped around the handle of the cart. “I fear he will not allow it. The dragon would never sacrifice you for himself.”
 

“He wouldn’t be sacrificing me. It’s my choice.”
 

“It matters not.” His cultured voice now revealed some of the brogue of his past. “I know the man beneath the beast. He would rather die than see you with me.”
 

“Why, Tars? Besides the fact that you doomed him to an eternity of loneliness,” she added dryly.
 

“We were friends,” he said, shifting restlessly. “I did not lie about that. But we both fell in love with the same woman. With you.”
 

He looked down at her, and again Alexa saw the longing, the desire that had brought on this entire situation. She felt a tug in her heart, that ancient need in some women to reform a man they thought reformable. She knew better, though, damn it. The tug ceased. “And?”
 

“And he wanted us to stop fighting. To not allow a woman to tear us apart. He proposed to let you choose, that we would agree to accept that choice and move on. Had you chosen me, he would have honored our agreement and we would have remained friends.”
 

“But I chose him.”
 

“And I could not be honorable.”
 

Alexa fought her exasperation. “You recognize this, yet hundreds of years later you fight the same stupid battle. How can any of us win, Tars? How can this possibly end well?”
 

Regret tinged his expression. “I fear it cannot. But you make me want to try.”
 

Alexa thought of Cyrgyn, of her nightly loneliness and the jumble of emotions she’d felt since this began. She wanted so much to be with him, to start a life that had been on hold for thirty-three—no, nearly one thousand thirty-three years.
 

“You make me want to try, too,” she said.
 

* * *
 

Ryc gasped and grabbed at his chest, where Alexa’s words had pierced him as easily as a dagger. He hadn’t heard their entire conversation, only the last exchange, when Tars complicated the sides by showing his humanness. And Alexa was softening toward the enemy.
 

Ryc backed down the aisle and wound his way to the far exit of the store to make certain they didn’t see him. He didn’t know how he was going to face Alexa. Climbing into his car, he thanked the stars Cyrgyn wouldn’t know what Ryc had just heard.
 

Alexa paid for the groceries and let Tars load them into the car. She said nothing beyond directions to get to the hotel. Halfway there her father called.
 

“You still with that guy?”
 

“Yes, Dad. What room are you in?”
 

“One twelve. It’s a smoking room, but I didn’t want Ethel climbing the stairs. I don’t trust him, Alexa,” he warned, and she chuckled.
 

“Don’t worry, Dad, neither do I.”
 

“Oh.” She could almost hear his frown. “But I thought you liked Victoria.”
 

“I do. One has nothing to do with the other.”
 

“I get it. But I don’t trust her either.”
 

“We’ll talk about it later, Dad.”
 

“Yeah, yeah. Just get the groceries and get rid of him. I don’t wanna look at his face. Bad enough I got Little Miss Fake Wimp around.”
 

Boy, he was irritable today. Maybe his burn was bothering him. He sounded like a lion with a sore paw.
 

She smiled at the analogy. “I understand, Dad. See you in five.”
 

“So what do we do?” Tars asked when she hung up.
 

“Bring the groceries over.”
 

“No, I mean about us.”
 

Alexa pocketed her phone and turned to face him fully. “To be honest, Tars, you really killed any possibility of ‘us’ when you did this to my family.”
 

His face hardened. “So you remain on his side. Despite what you said in that store.”
 

She shook her head at him. “You are a real piece of work. Tars, maybe six hundred years ago you were a nice guy, a guy worth loving. If you hadn’t lashed out like so many other stupid teenage boys…” She thought about the curse. “Okay, not like them. My point is you had a chance to find your own love, and you blew it by cursing all of us. That twisted something in you. I don’t think it’s redeemable.”
 

His features like granite but his hands steady on the wheel, he said in a low voice, “But you won’t try.”
 

“I can’t. No, you’re right,” she corrected, “I won’t. I won’t risk the people I love that way.”
 

He looked at her and the feverish light she’d seen on the rooftop was back in his pale eyes. “You may anyway, Alexa.”
 

Anger flooded her. “No, I won’t.” Tars parked the car in front of the hotel and she shoved the door open and grabbed her bags. “You stay away from my family, Tarsuinn. This is between us, and anything you do to them will only make it worse for you.”
 

“How?” he taunted, standing in his open door with one foot on the running board. “With your little magic tricks?”
 

Furious because she was as impotent as he implied, she felt for the magical energy. Her
rage grew when she didn’t detect any close enough or dense enough to use. A blue coil rested on the ground several feet away and she snatched it up, whipping it out at him. It caught him across the face and he gasped, not just in surprise but in pain.
 

His hand flew to his cheek, which glistened. Drops of water glittered in his blond hair. He stared at her, then at his steaming hand. He quickly wiped it on his jacket and dropped into the car. Seconds later he roared away.
 

Alexa stared after him, not sure how to interpret the scene. She would swear he’d seemed afraid. But what good did it do to toss a puddle at him?
 

She looked at the ground where the coil had been, but the spot was dry. She went closer, bent and touched the blacktop. Not even a damp patch. There hadn’t been a puddle there. But he’d been wet, and it had hurt him.
 

It came to her in a flash. The energy. Tars used thermal energy—the kind that had burned her brain—as his weapon of choice. The blue coil must have been water energy. Alexa had told Cyrgyn just this morning that there had to be something to use against Tars that he couldn’t counter.
 

She’d found it.
 

* * *
 

Tars sped away from the hotel, swiping feverishly at his face with a handkerchief. His skin felt like it was melting. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
 

When he’d left the city and reached a relatively empty road he pulled over. He looked in the rearview mirror. His cheek was red and when he looked closer, he could see tiny pock marks where droplets had hit.
 

“Damn her.” He swiped at his cheek again, then threw the cloth onto the seat next to him and grabbed his phone.
 

“Mark.” Before the man could respond, he barked orders. “Get the jet ready. I want to take off as soon as I arrive at the runway. And find me a salve. Something for burns.”
 

“Anything else?”
 

“No.” He thought of Alexa’s challenge and struggled to control the anger and despair and loss he’d been fighting for hundreds of years. He didn’t know what his next step was going to be. He needed time, and planning.
 

He needed to figure out a way to combat her new weapon.
 

* * *
 

Alexa planned to get her family and their things settled for the night, then head for the woods to check on Cyrgyn. But they wouldn’t let her get away so easily.
 

“Where are you going?” Peter asked her when she kissed him goodbye. “We’re gonna go get some dinner.”
 

“Oh, I’m not hungry.” She kept her hand on the doorknob, her urgency to get to Cyrgyn growing.
 

“Well, you can’t get into the apartment without us,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he frowned. “You are staying in the apartment, aren’t you?”
 

She thought quickly. “I don’t think you have room for me. I can make other arrangements.”
 

“We have three bedrooms,” Victoria pitched in from the closet where she was hanging the rest of Aunt Ethel’s new clothes. “We’d feel much better if you stay with us.”
 

Alexa felt trapped. “The truth is, I’m still on a job. I’ll be in and out, and at all hours. I really—”
 

“You quit.”
 

She looked at her father. “What?”
 

“You can’t be on a job. You told me you quit GenCom.”
 

She used to be much better at this, she thought. A few days out of work, and she’d lost her touch. All her touches.
 

“It’s private work. I can’t talk about it.”
 

“Have dinner with us, anyway,” Victoria begged, her arms wrapped around a navy cardigan sweater. “I haven’t seen you in so long, and I’d love to catch up a little.”
 

Alexa could just imagine that scenario.
I’m fighting a fire mage to win the life of my soulmate, who happens to be a dragon. He’s the one who torched the house. The mage, not the dragon. We’re at a stalemate, but that’s okay because I discovered his weakness. When it’s over, hopefully my dragon will be a man and we’ll live happily ever after
. And then Victoria would faint.
 

But it didn’t look like she was going to get out of dinner, so she hustled them down the street to a diner and told the waitress they’d order right away. Her father glared at her, but Peter seemed to think they shouldn’t push their luck and went with it. Victoria, of course, followed his lead, right down to ordering onions with her steak.
 

“So, Vic, your brother’s back. That’s pretty incredible.” Alexa set her wrapped silverware to the side and propped her chin in her hand. “You haven’t heard from him in all these years, huh?”
 

“Twenty-one, to be exact.” Her gaze flicked to Paul, who sat next to Alexa, and she began to fuss with her napkin and straw and silverware. “Actually, Tars disappeared the same month your mother died.” She looked up at Peter. “We’ve talked about it. What a tragic time.”
 

Alexa refrained from voicing her opinion that losing a mother as wonderful as Diane Ranger was much more traumatic than losing a jerko brother like Tars.
 

“What was he like back then?” she asked. “I don’t remember him, though I know he’s my age.”
 

“He was sweet. Mom and Dad sent him to private school, I think because Mom didn’t like to be reminded of her predecessor.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. The corners of her mouth pulled down and Alexa could read pity in her expression. “He was so nice to me, though. He drew me pictures, and took me to the movies, and taught me how to light a match.”
 

She looked up, horror making an “O” of her mouth. “My goodness, I’m sorry! What a terrible thing to say!”
 

“It’s okay,” Alexa assured her, nudging her father’s ankle with her foot when he harrumphed. “Have you and Peter decided on a date yet?”
 

Now it was her turn to have her ankle dented. Paul rattled the newspaper he was reading and lifted it higher.
 

“We’d narrowed it down but it’s back up in the air,” Peter explained. “We’ve got time.”
 

“A lifetime,” Victoria murmured, obviously rubbing Peter’s knee while she gazed adoringly at him. Alexa would have made a barfing gesture if the younger woman hadn’t turned
back to her. Victoria squared her shoulders and sat up straighter. Alexa raised her eyebrows, wondering what she needed courage for.
 

“Alexa, I know your father is not exactly approving of our marriage.” Paul harrumphed again but Victoria ignored him and continued. “I just want you to know, since the trust is half yours—”
 

“It’s not,” Alexa corrected her. “It’s all Peter’s.”
 

Paul slapped the newspaper to the table. “Whatcha tellin’ her that for? It’ll just encourage her,” he complained.
 

Victoria matched him glare for glare. “As I was saying, Mr. Ranger, I have agreed to sign a prenuptial agreement to protect your son’s inheritance. He thinks it’s unnecessary, but I insist. I don’t want any doubts hanging over the start of our life together. How many times do I have to say it?” She leaned over the table. “I love your son. He loves me. There are no ulterior motives here, and if you persist in believing the opposite you will do more damage to your relationship with Peter than you have already done. And I won’t stand for that. You’ve caused him enough pain.”
 

Well, well, well. The kitten had claws. Alexa could have been impressed, but the show actually served only to stir her suspicions again. A woman who could speak this plainly and ferociously couldn’t be the meek follower she acted like otherwise. It wasn’t out of the question that Tars had set his sister up as a mole. She could be, innocently or not, part of his overall plan. It didn’t explain why he’d shown his hand, though…
 

They ended up eating in relative silence. Alexa tried to compartmentalize her thoughts, but logistics for helping her family through this warred with ideas for using Victoria as an inadvertent double agent, and both were intertwined with concern for Cyrgyn, alone in the damp woods, and for Ryc, who hadn’t reappeared all day.