The Island Of Dragons: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (17 page)

Feeling as if I’d been socked in the gut, I couldn’t make any sound for a moment or two, and when I finally could, the noise was just a near-whisper. “What?”

Dalton was a little quicker on the uptake, perhaps because he didn’t feel as if he’d been punched. “Chief Knight, no. Please don’t do this to her. It’s noble of you, yes, but she’s my sister, and she doesn’t deserve this. There’s got to be some other way, or some other person that could make the sacrifice instead of you, if this is the route you want to take.”

Despite being so hurt and stunned that I felt as if I could barely breathe or manage any coherent thought, I finally got it. I understood. “Warren, no. Please, no. You can’t do this.”

He took my hands in his, but didn’t look into my eyes like he normally did when holding my hands. Instead, he seemed to focus on a spot somewhere just above my eyes, my forehead maybe. “We don’t have much time, and someone on this island has got to become a Form in order to save everyone else.”

My heart was hammering in my ears so loudly I’d heard his words actually a bit muffled. “But not you, though, Warren.
You
don’t have to become a Form. You can just stay right here in the village with me, while someone else does it. Then we can be happy together, and—”

“Many of the other men on this island are fathers. I’m not yet. So—”

“Dan doesn’t have a child yet. Josh doesn’t have a child yet. I could even list you three dozen other men from the village who don’t have children yet.” I felt a sharp twinge of guilt for even suggesting Melissa and Melody’s husbands, but I was feeling wild and desperate, and the words just seemed to be tumbling from my mouth.

Warren shook his head, still not looking me directly in the eyes. “I’m sure you could, but it doesn’t matter. A good chief doesn’t order one of his own men into a lake to become a murderous Form, a grotesque perversion of his natural self.”

I squeezed his hands, which were icy cold, trying to will him to look into my eyes. “Well, if you wouldn’t order one of your own men to do it, then you shouldn’t require the same of yourself.”

“But I’m the leader of this village. It’s my very job to protect everyone, and I think sparing all the inhabitants of this island from certain death definitely falls under that umbrella.”

With hot tears prickling my eyelids, I squeezed his hands again. “But there are two other island leaders, Eric and Holden.”

“And they both have children. One of them an infant, I believe. And I could never ask a father not to watch his child grow up.”

“Well, then, there’s got to be someone else who—”

“But I’m the one of three men on this island entrusted to protect its citizens with my very life at all times, and in all circumstances, and there’s no clause in my village leadership covenant that says that I’m free to get out of that just because I’d infinitely rather spend the rest of my life with the woman I love. And even if there were....” He cringed, expression positively anguished. “I have a duty, Ellie. I took an oath.” Abruptly pulling his hands from mine, he suddenly stood, still not looking me in the eyes. “My mind’s made up, and right now I just need to be alone. Please don’t follow me. Just know that I’m very, very sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”

*

Frantic and sobbing, I wanted to chase after Warren, wanted to beg him to reconsider, but Dalton wouldn’t let me.  “I think he really does need some space right now. You’ll be able to talk to him again later. I promise.”

I cried on Dalton’s couch while he awkwardly patted my back a few different times, apologizing that he had no previous experience in comforting sisters. Through my wails and sniffles, I told him that was fine because I had no experience in not freaking out brothers with prolonged and possibly disturbing displays of grief. But after maybe ten minutes or so, my grief began to not feel cathartic anymore; it just felt
not right
, in a way I couldn’t readily articulate even to myself. I’d been crying on the loveseat with my face buried in a pillow, and with Dalton beside me, and I now sat up, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

Dalton studied my face with a clear expression of worry. “Do you think you might want to dry out a little before starting up again? Do you think that would make you feel better to kind of cycle it? Or should you just try to go back to hard crying right now and just get the rest of it all out? Or do you think maybe you might want some ice cream? Do they even have ice cream here? If you want, I suppose I could try to make some for you by running a Freon condenser coil over a dish of goat’s milk and sugar.”

I shook my head, wiping my eyes again. “Thanks, but... I don’t think that’s exactly what I want.”

“Well, I could add some flavorings to the concoction if you want. Maybe like … some pureed mango or guava. Those flavors might make a nice ice cream. Or, we could skip the goat’s milk part of the recipe entirely and make you a frosty pineapple sorbet.”

Fighting an urge to giggle, though I wasn’t even entirely sure why, I shook my head again. “Thanks, but... still not what I think I need.”

Dalton frowned, appearing almost comically stumped. “A lime granita, then? I mean... what kinds of flavorings do women usually like when they’re dealing with heartache? I have to admit, I’m just not very knowledgeable in this area.”

A shook my head a third time, suddenly so grateful to have a family member, even a brand-new one, on the island with me. “Thanks, Dalton, but I don’t think any kind of a treat is what I need right now.”

“Well, then, what
do
you need? I want to do anything to help.”

“Well, thanks, but I think what I need is something I can only do for myself.” I took a deep breath, thinking. “What I need is probably to stop having a boo-hoo party for myself. It’s just not me to sit around and cry when something can be done... or at least, it
shouldn’t
be me. I single-handedly rescued a little boy from the ocean just a few days ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to be strong and smart about things right now. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to think of some action I can take, or some plan I can develop, to stop Warren from doing what he wants to do... which is basically just committing suicide.”

“Well... trying to think of some kind of a plan to stop him seems reasonable. But what
can
you do? Chief Knight seems pretty determined to do what he feels he needs to.”

I shook my head, hugging my knees to my chest. “I don’t know what I can do. I just need time to think.”

We both fell silent briefly, and then I suddenly thought of something. Something that Dalton hadn’t explained earlier. “Hey. Before you fell and hit your head... you said that Warren and I couldn’t have ‘relations’ anymore, and that it had to do with the golem. Why did you say that? What did it mean?”

Dalton’s freckled face had begun reddening even before I’d finished speaking.

Well on his way to bursting into full flames, he cleared his throat. “Oh,
that
. Well, it wasn’t just you and Chief Knight. I was actually going to go on to say that
no one
in the village should be having relations.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know if anyone here on the island has noticed over the years, but lake creatures... whether they be Forms or a golem... are sensitive to the energy levels on the island. According to our father’s notes, a higher level of energy on the island should lead to them being ‘rowdier,’ for lack of a better word; harder to contain, and more troublesome. And when passions rise between individuals...” He paused, clearing his throat once again. “Well, it contributes to the collective energy level rising, which theoretically, in turn leads to any lake creatures being whipped into a frenzy. So, if you do think of some plan … if you can maybe get someone else to go into the lake and become a Form in Warren’s stead ... you and everyone else on the island will always have to be aware that passionate encounters will always likely result in increased activity down at the lake in return.”

“Oh.”

Honestly, having Warren gone to deal with problems at the lake for a few hours seemed like a small price to pay for the pleasures of making love to him.

Just then, the metal arm of Dalton’s homemade seismograph began skittering all over the paper slowly moving beneath it. Dalton got up, studied the paper for a few moments, frowning, then picked up the whole contraption and told me to start heading outside with him. “Another quake coming. This island is really eager to fold in on itself. We may not even get the full thirty days Harold calculated.”

Over the course of the rest of the day, small earthquakes jolted the island numerous times, though fortunately, none of the quakes caused any further damage to the castles or any of the other buildings in the village. Dalton and some of Warren’s men set up Dalton’s seismograph in an outbuilding, where it would be monitored every minute of the day. While they worked to set up the alarm system, so that people could return to their castles knowing that there would be warning to get out before the ground shook again, most everyone who wasn’t injured hung out in the little tent village down by the shore.

While I sat in a lounge chair, surveying the brilliant, glittering ocean with a dull ache in my chest, Davy came by and “gotcha-ed” me by offering me a bite of a cracker, then claiming that I hadn’t just eaten part of a cracker that had been made with flour, but instead, made with the powdered bones of dragon shifters that had died in battle over a thousand years earlier. After I’d mustered a smile and complimented his creativity with this gotcha, he asked me when we might have tumbling classes on the outdoor events platform again.

Trying to act nonchalant, I shrugged, forcing myself to smile again. “Hopefully soon ... once everything gets back to normal after the quakes stop.”

Melissa, who’d just walked up with some fruity, tropical drink in hand, took a seat in a chair beside me. “Well, how much longer can they go on? Aren’t earthquakes just usually a couple of big tremors and then a few aftershocks? Seems like we should be near the end of it by now.”

Clearly, Warren hadn’t told anyone about what was really going on yet, or at least not many people, because as a council member, it seemed like Melissa would be one of the first to know. Fortunately, I was spared in responding to her by Davy making a dramatic scene of feigning blindness due to the extreme brightness of her neon yellow bikini top.

During a community clambake that evening, several people remarked how very stressed Warren had looked earlier before leaving the village to meet with Holden, the leader of the Sun Cove bears. I hoped Warren would tell everyone about the decision he’d made soon, so that I wouldn’t have to keep pretending that I wasn’t overly worried about him.

After the meal, most everyone returned to their castles. I barely slept at all that night, though not because of any more quakes. My problem was that nearly every time I nodded off, I kept having nightmares of seeing Warren emerging from the murky lake as a Form, dark, shadowy, and red-eyed.

***

The next day, he held a town hall meeting in the Great Hall in the heart of the village, and he finally, though very briefly, told everyone what was going on, and what he’d decided to do about it. I didn’t attend, unable to bear hearing him talk about the sacrifice he was determined to make. I only got a recap of the meeting afterward, when Melody and Melissa came rushing over to my castle, both of them thoroughly rattled and panic-stricken. Melody was crying, which made me start up my own waterworks for the second day in a row, but like the previous day, I refused to let myself cry for long.

After drying my eyes with a tissue, I looked at them both, determined to keep my voice steady. “It’s all going to be okay. I just have to think of some way that everything can be fixed without Warren having to do what he wants to do. I just have to think of some plan, or... or something. I’m just not sure what that plan is yet.”

They had no answers, either. It was clear that
someone
was going to have to go into the lake and become a Form in order for everyone on the island to be saved.

Once Melody and Melissa had left to be with their husbands, I texted Warren, saying that I’d given him space as he’d asked, but now I really needed to see him.
I miss you so much I can hardly stand it
, I wrote, and it was true. I missed his deep, resonant voice, his masculine, woodsy scent, and the feel of his strong arms around me. I missed the feeling of complete safety I always had whenever I was with him. I missed the shared pleasure of our lovemaking, and the feeling of his long, hard body against mine. I missed every single thing about him. Most of all, I missed feeling certain that we were going to have a future together.

After what felt like a really long delay, but was actually probably only a few minutes, Warren texted back, saying that he missed me unbelievably, but that he couldn’t see me alone right then.
I may be a strong man, but I’m weak around you, and I’m scared that one minute alone with you would make me reconsider my decision, and I just can’t let that happen. I have to remain steadfast, for the good of everyone, and because it’s my duty to do so. I do love you, Ellie, more than you know, and I wish to God things could be different.

That evening, Melissa let me know that Warren was holding a council meeting, and that the two other island leaders would be present. Though he hadn’t specifically invited me, he hadn’t specifically
not
invited me either, and I resolved that this was one meeting I was not going to miss. The town hall meeting had seemed to be just for giving information, but at a meeting with the council and other island leaders present only, I knew there might be a real chance for productive discussion about possible alternative ways to prevent the island from self-destructing. I was hoping that Dalton, who’d been invited to the meeting, might be able to help me in this, maybe with some ideas involving science. I hadn’t seen him since the day before, and though he hadn’t had any ideas for possible solutions that didn’t involve Warren then, I hoped he’d had his thinking cap on.