Soul of the Dragon (31 page)

She heard a rush of air behind her and knew Cyrgyn was swooping in. A tongue of fire blasted in front of them and Tars dropped to the ground when she let go. In seconds she was on Cyrgyn’s back and in the air.
 

Fireballs flew by, but as big as he was, Cyrgyn easily dodged them. He let loose another stream of fire, then surged into the sky and out of range.
 

Alexa slumped against Cyrgyn’s neck as he winged his way east to the hangar. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
 

She had failed.
 

Tars remained where he was, on one knee in the sand. He could feel Alexa’s sense of failure and Cyrgyn’s despair. He allowed the emotions to besiege him. He deserved their hatred, he knew.
 

Alexa thought she’d failed, but she’d tried. He was the one who had failed her. It had taken nearly a thousand years, but he finally understood. She could never love him.
 

He was pathetic.
 

He slowly straightened and looked up into the night sky. Cyrgyn was long gone, of course, and he could no longer feel their souls nearby. He looked around. The revelers on the opposite shore had retired as well. He was completely alone.
 

Alone. As he’d been his entire life. Four lifetimes. He clenched a fist to his chest and willed the anguish to turn to the more familiar rage. He was a billionaire, a sought-after bachelor in this day. A handsome man and accomplished mage. It was a flaw in Alexa, not in him, that would not allow her to love him.
 

The flaw was Cyrgyn.
 

Alexa was right. It was not over.
 

* * *
 

Cyrgyn dropped through the opening in the roof and furled his wings. Peter and another man rushed forward and caught Alexa as she slid off his back.
 

“What happened to her?” the other man demanded. Cyrgyn watched them half carry, half drag her to the couch.
 

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Cyrgyn said in as mild a tone as he could master. The man had military bearing and the attitude of an officer. He guessed he was someone Alexa worked with. “Regardless, I did nothing to her.”
 

“It was Tarsuinn,” Peter said, smoothing Alexa’s hair off her forehead. Her eyes were half open but she looked drugged. “I don’t know what happened.” He bent over his sister. “Alexa. Tell me. What is it? Did he hurt you?”
 

“No.” Cyrgyn shook his head slowly when they looked over their shoulders at him. “I was watching. She hurt him, actually. Physically.” He waited, but they still ignored him. “Who are you?”
 

The man looked up again. “Rock Davis. Alexa’s boss.” He bent over Alexa and stroked her cheek. “Come on, sweetheart. Snap out of it.”
 

Cyrgyn felt piercing jealousy when Alexa did, indeed, snap out of it. She focused on Rock’s face, but the dullness didn’t leave her eyes.
 

“I failed. It’s over. Go home.” She closed her eyes.
 

Cyrgyn stepped closer and lowered his head over Alexa. “It is not over, Alexa. I am alive. You are alive. As long as we have that, we have hope.”
 

Alexa dropped her arm over her eyes. “Faint hope. He’s going to kill me. If I don’t kill him. Either way, Cyrgyn, you lose.”
 

“You think this is about me?” He pulled back. Of course she did. What else would she think, when he had carried on about himself and the consequences of their failure? Her failure, as she obviously thought of it.
 

“Just leave me alone,” she mumbled, and rolled over to curl against the back of the couch. “Go away.”
 

The men stood around her, arms dangling, looking like children when their favorite toy is gone.
 

Deciding he had lain around feeling sorry for himself long enough, Cyrgyn took charge.
 

“Peter, call your fiancée. Get Tarsuinn’s cell phone number from her.” He turned to Rock. “Mr. Davis, I presume you have tracking capabilities?”
 

Rock looked around. “Not with me, but I imagine Alexa does.”
 

“Fine. Once Peter has the number, work with him to obtain his location. Keep track of him. Alexa.”
 

Surprisingly, she responded to his authority. At least, she rolled over.
 

“Go to bed. You need restoration or you will be worthless to all of us.” He waited as she rolled off the couch and trudged upstairs. When her door was closed, he moved to the center of the hangar. “I will be back,” he said.
 

Peter crossed the cement floor. “Where are you going?”
 

He paused. “Alexa may not listen to us, but she might listen to another.” He hoped. Ryc was his only chance to convince her they weren’t defeated. He didn’t wait for Peter to question him further, simply launched back into the sky. He thought as he went that he had to be grateful to Tarsuinn for one thing, at least.
 

He no longer had to contend with that bloody door.
 

Alexa started to surface from a deep, dreamless sleep, the kind she hadn’t had since the exhausted days of college finals. Halfway there she remembered her meeting with Tars, her failure to find compromise, to give herself up for Cyrgyn, and dove back down.
 

She didn’t realize she was crying until she buried her head in the pillow and felt its dampness on her cheek. She didn’t want to cry over this, dammit. She was acting like a stupid woman and hated it. But she was helpless to pull herself out of self-pity.
 

Suddenly, she wasn’t alone. There was a presence in her room. A reason to stop wallowing. To surface. She pushed until the need to connect with him overrode the need to die without him.
 

“Ryc.”
 

The bed dipped and he was there. “Alexa.”
 

She couldn’t open her eyes. She lifted a hand to touch them and realized the lids were swollen. “I failed, Ryc.” Her voice was only a whisper, but she knew if she tried to speak louder it would crack and send her back down into the pit. “Tars wouldn’t deal. And I couldn’t give in.”
 

“I know.”
 

“It’s over. He’ll try to kill me, and eventually he’ll succeed.”
 

“It’s not over, Alexa.” She could feel him bent over her. One of his hands was braced next to her hip, the other by her shoulder, and his face had to be inches from hers. She could feel his breath.
 

His voice rumbled in her ear. “Didn’t you hear Cyrgyn? As long as there is life, there is hope. You can’t know what is going to happen. Tarsuinn may not succeed in killing you. Maybe, this time, you’ll kill him.” Now she felt the rasp of his unshaven jaw against the side of her face. “We don’t know what will happen, Alexa. But we have to try.”
 

We.
She never thought such a word would sound so powerful. She’d imagined she was alone in this quest, but she wasn’t. She already had Peter, and Rock, and Kurt and Cyrgyn. And Ryc, who gave her strength she didn’t know she had.
 

“Ryc.” She turned her head and let her lips graze his jaw. “Where is everyone?”
 

Ryc froze where he was, afraid to move away but more afraid to get closer. “Your brother and boss are trying to track Tarsuinn. They had interference so they went outside and moved away from the hangar.”
 

Alexa’s hand lifted to his neck and stroked. He felt the fire on his skin, the electricity beneath.
 

“And Cyrgyn?”
 

If she only knew. “Aloft.”
 

Her hands gripped the sides of his head and pulled his mouth to a hairsbreadth from hers. “Ryc. I need you. Please. Give me something to hold on to,” she pleaded. “Make me feel something real.”
 

God help him, he couldn’t deny her. Desire roared through him. He shifted so his knee
dug into the bed next to her hip, then rose above her. Her eyes were still closed, but her hands found him easily enough. She lit enough fires to burn them all to hell and back.
 

“Alexa.” He tried once, halfheartedly to be certain, but his deceptions and knowledge of the truth forced him to try to stop. “You can’t do this. You don’t know—”
 

“I know enough.” She pulled his t-shirt up and plunged her hands underneath. “I want you, Ryc.” She arched and something inside him broke. He knew once she learned the truth she’d hate him and Cyrgyn alike, but he was still only a man. A man so much in love he had wept with it. He could deny her, and he could deny himself, but he could not deny them both.
 

“Please, Ryc,” she whispered again, finally opening her eyes. He was afraid she sought him out of despair and sorrow, but the emotions roiling in her were so much more complicated. “Please.”
 

“Aye,” he growled, not even aware of the word he used. He thrust one hand into Alexa’s hair and gripped her skull. “You will be mine, and I will be yours, at least for this night.”
 

“
Yes
.”
 

Alexa wrapped herself around Ryc as he finally, finally kissed her. She expected power, urgency, and was stunned into immobility by the tenderness of his mouth. His hands moved on her almost reverently, and the desperation she’d felt faded.
 

Ryc supported himself on one knee to tug off his leather jacket, and Alexa rose enough to shuck her own. She moved to pull off his t-shirt, but he pressed her back down onto the bed.
 

“Slowly,” he said, stroking his hand down her bare arm. “If we only have tonight, we are damn well going to savor it.”
 

And they did. For what felt like hours they touched and tasted. Alexa inhaled Ryc’s scent, internalizing it forever. When they finally began removing clothes, she concentrated on the textures of his skin and hair, the shapes of his muscles, the change in his breathing when she did something special.
 

She removed her tank top and aligned herself with him so they stretched out side by side, her breasts against his chest, their jeans-clad legs wrapped around each other. Alexa tilted her head back to press her breasts harder against him, then rubbed so his crisp chest hair stimulated her nipples.
 

“Mmmm. You feel good,” she murmured. When she dropped her chin Ryc was grinning at her.
 

“Not as good as you, babe.” He took her mouth again, and this time the kiss held need. His hands on her back and shoulders pressed harder, gripped tighter. An answering surge of desire rose in her, and she rolled to lie on top of him.
 

Soon, even that wasn’t enough. Alexa rolled off and yanked at her jeans while, laughing, Ryc did the same. This time, when they came together, the earth shook. Just from skin on skin, heat on heat.
 

They fed on each other until Alexa couldn’t stand it anymore. She urged Ryc over her and gripped his hips. “Now, Ryc. I want you now.”
 

Ryc lifted his head and didn’t move until she met his eyes.
 

“This is us,” he said, and slid deep.
 

Alexa couldn’t breathe, couldn’t break eye contact, could barely move. If she hadn’t believed in magic before, she did now. The air seemed to explode in violent color. Something sang in her ears but didn’t block the music of Ryc’s voice as he groaned his pleasure. Every nerve
ending in her body seemed stroked by him. And where it counted, deep inside, she knew there was no other man for her.
 

The crest came quickly for both of them. Ryc slammed into her once, again, and she drove upward to meet him as the explosions started, building to a crescendo that was almost unbearable. Alexa’s awareness narrowed to Ryc’s golden eyes and the pleasure arrowing through her. She clamped her mouth shut so the words ballooning in her mind wouldn’t escape. It was betrayal enough to do this with Ryc—she couldn’t tell him she loved him, too.
 

And just like that, it was over.
 

Ryc braced himself over her but didn’t roll away. He pressed his face to her neck as their breathing slowed. Alexa ran her hands up and down his back while tears slid from the corners of her eyes. She didn’t know what she wept for, but knew she’d never feel such beauty again.
 

Ryc shuddered and tensed. After a moment he relaxed but immediately got up and reached for his clothes. “I have to go,” he said, and there was a different kind of urgency in his movements.
 

“Why?”
 

“I can’t explain now. You’ll know soon enough.” He pulled his shirt down and bent to kiss her. “I’ll be back tomorrow. We have to go to Scotland.”
 

“I know.” She grabbed his hand before he pulled away, and he paused. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it. The despair was gone. She knew that whatever happened tomorrow, she and Ryc could not be. But she felt no regret for what they had done.
 

“I’m strong enough to do what we must,” she told him. “Stay safe.”
 

After he left, Alexa sat looking at the door for a long time. She wanted to prolong the night, avoid what they faced, but knew it was impossible.
 

The longer she thought about making love with Ryc, however, the uneasier she felt. Something was wrong with the whole scenario, and if she weren’t so tired and overwhelmed she’d figure it out.
 

Finally, she lay down and closed her eyes to sleep, the phrase “only one soulmate” whispering in her head.