Silver Dragon Read online

  Except . . .

  How and when to tell her? He’d rather fight an acid-spitting hydra-demon. At least he knew how to do that. But revealing himself to his mate without horrifying her seemed fraught with danger.

  He sensed that she was nervous in how high her voice was, and the way her small, pretty hands smoothed down the front of the charming blue garment she wore. He looked around the little room, which was neat, scrupulously clean, but above all harmonious, with the roses he had given her centered in pride of place on a table. The colors in the room were those of the sea, of summer light, of warmth.

  Two bookcases were packed with books. He remembered that she was a writer. A quick glance showed a variety of reading, but he didn’t see her name among them.

  Seascapes vied with flowers in simply framed watercolors on the walls. Flowering plants added green and fresh scent. He looked more closely at the paintings, and recognized her style in the careful detail and blending of color.

  “You made these,” he said, indicating the nearest seascape. “How beautiful in all its details!”

  She was still standing by the door, but at this she came in, her face rosy with color. “I’m not nearly as good as Mr. Kleiner at the big house. He’s a true, trained artist. I only made these for myself.”

  “I don’t think anything could be better than these,” he said with absolute sincerity.

  She blushed charmingly again. “Thanks for that, even if we both know it isn’t true. Please, come into the kitchen. I hope you’ll overlook the fact that I don’t have a dining room.”

  A small table sat against a wall. The cramped kitchen smelled invitingly of roast chicken and something with apples and cinnamon. She brought a covered dish out of the oven, set it on the table, then offered him a variety of things to drink—she had bought wine—and he said, “I’ll have whatever you customarily have. They’ll be offering cocktails at the reception.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’d rather not arrive with a buzz, so would sparkling water be all right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  She poured it out. “I guess I should apologize for not having matching dishes, but I’ve sort of put together my kitchenware over the years. You, as guest, get the crystal drinking glass.”

  He bowed from his chair. “I am honored.”

  She laughed at that, and indicated he help himself to the food as she asked, “What can you tell me about the reception? And your book?”

  “This is a book tour, co-hosted by the Art, Asian Studies, and the Social Sciences departments,” he said. “I wrote the book mostly to entertain myself one long winter, and the university I was associated with decided to publish it. They like publicity tours, especially if they don’t have to pay for them. Since I was already coming here for the cave investigation, it was easy for them to arrange the reception. But unless you want to hear about jade toggles, please tell me more about your writing. Godiva mentioned awards?”

  The smile vanished from Bird’s face. “I don’t write anymore,” she said, looking away, her shoulders tight. “The awards . . . they never meant much to me. I left all that behind when my ex divorced me.”

  “I’m sorry I brought up a painful subject,” he apologized. “Let’s talk about your art. Have you always preferred watercolor?”

  The bright smile was back. “I started with colored pencils, then gradually branched out. Watercolor can be so luminous, and I love the way it lies on paper. But that might be venturing into boring territory?”

  “I was trained in calligraphy when young,” he said. “I know exactly what you mean about color lying on the paper, though for me it was ink . . .”

  She had made lemon chicken, served over long rice, with asparagus. He would have eaten it if it had tasted like sawdust and motor oil because it came from her hands, but it was delicious, the flavors blended in the way colors blended in her art: harmonious.

  Tell her, his dragon hissed. Show her our glory!

  Not until she is ready to ask. The subject of non-humans lay in the air. He refused to enter her mind without permission but he suspected she had not forgotten. It did not take his mythic awareness to sense that this careful step toward intimacy was new for them both—courtship for him, and for her, trusting him inside her place of safety.

  Rueful laughter bloomed inside him as the thought occurred that he was learning courtship while hoping with every cell of his being never to use it again. To win the trust of this gentle woman, whose arts, whether in food or on paper, promised layers of complexity. But one thing he was certain of: he must permit her to choose when to ask.

  “Yes,” she said, eyes bright. “I love museums! I used to take my sketchpad to the art museum over by La Brea, when I was growing up in Los Angeles. As often as I could I’d go to the Getty, where my favorite art was. I’d take my lunch and sit overlooking the sea from the back garden.”

  “You like heights?” he asked.

  “I do, especially overlooking the ocean. It’s never the same, ever.”

  “Very true. . . .”

  As the talk drifted from the sea to favorite landmarks and back again to art, he was aware of the dawn of happiness. That sun had yet to rise, but it beckoned just beyond the horizon of awareness.

  They talked on about different forms of art, which led to artistic talent, and how some people seemed to be good at whatever they touched, and how talent could pass down in families. He relished how she glowed when he admitted that he had saved Fei Zhan’s early scrawls.

  “They didn’t show a vestige of artistic talent,” he admitted. “And he’d probably made them at the behest of his tutors or his mother, but he had made them—they had come from his hands—and so I carried them with me. I took them out to look at until the paper finally fell apart.”

  “I did the same thing,” she said softly, her eyes glistening. “I had so very little of my kids, just a few of those scrawls. And Skater had drawn in one of my books once. His father scolded him for mistreating a book, but I tried to get him to stop the scolding. Illustrating that book made perfect sense to a two year old. His mother made drawings in books, so he was making a drawing in a book! I still have that book, in the nightstand next to my bed. I also managed to save some drawings Bec had made at nursery school for Mother’s Day. Those were more precious to me than diamonds—”

  She halted, giving a wide-eyed glance at the clock. “Oh! I should serve the dessert! We have half an hour before we should leave.”

  Bird brought out a dessert that smelled like apples and cinnamon. “This is Apple Brown Betty,” she said quickly. “It’s the only thing I remember my mother loving to make. She left the recipe behind in her Joy of Cooking cookbook.”

  She served them each a piece. He took a bite, relishing the blend of apple and spice, complemented by the delicate, sweet-salty crust.

  “Do you like it?” she asked.

  “It’s delicious.” He finished it off as she watched with a happy smile.

  It was then that he noticed that her dessert sat before her almost untouched. She squared her shoulders, and he knew that the moment had come.

  She said slowly, “So . . . you said something about . . . others. Not-human others. Did you mean animals?”

  “In part,” he said, laying down his fork. “Long ago, humankind lived side by side not only with the animal world, but that of the dual-natured—humans who could also be animals.”

  She gazed at him, her pupils huge. “What happened to them?”

  “As humans became the dominant group, the dual-natured—nowadays they are known as shifters—had to hide themselves among the humans.”

  “As my friend Godiva once said, humans are overrated,” she said tartly. His dragon hummed with laughter.

  Then Bird sobered. “I know that’s not fair. I’ve read enough history to know that we humans can be both wonderful and cruel. And are very good at both. Very,” she whispered as she looked up, and away, then back. “So what you are saying is that these shifters . . .
still exist?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Her pupils were enormous. “And you know the truth because . . .”

  “I am one of them.”

  He locked down hard on the mental realm, though he felt his dragon struggling to delve into her thoughts as much as he was able. Then cold showered through Mikhail’s nerves when he saw the glint of tears along the lower edges of her eyes.

  She got abruptly to her feet, reached for his empty plate, took it and her untouched dessert to the kitchen counter, and began to busy herself in tidying. When he saw the tremble in her fingers, he got up and took a step toward her.

  “Bird,” he said as gently as he could, sick with dread. He’d lost her—he’d frightened her—he wanted to cut out his tongue.

  She gave a tiny sob, and leaned her hands against the sink. “It’s okay,” she said in a high voice. “Having a senior moment here.”

  “Bird, my dear Bird,” he murmured, taking another step, then halting lest she feel crowded, unsafe, that he had lost her trust.

  She turned abruptly, smiling, though tear tracks gleamed on her face. “It’s fine. Good, really. In fact, it’s wonderful.”

  Hope began to ease the pain in his chest.

  She went on, looking away, then back, away, then back again, and met his gaze straight on. “Will I sound like a . . . a nitwit if I say, if it was anyone else, I’d worry about their sanity, but because it was you, I believe it?” She gave a teary chuckle. “If it’s insanity, we can both be insane.”

  “You are one of the sanest people I have had the privilege of meeting,” he said, bringing his hands lightly to her shoulders.

  Her watery gaze lifted to his, her lips parted. Slow and deliberate, he caressed her shoulders, feeling the last tension melt under his fingers, then cupped her face, his thumbs resting gently against the soft skin of her jaw.

  Her breathing hitched. He unlocked the steel vault controlling his mental connection just enough to sense the amalgam of her emotions: wonder, laughter, sorrow, joy, and the heat of desire. But he sensed no fear as she closed the distance between them, her own hands coming up to touch his face, his hair, and to close around his neck, drawing him so close he could feel her heartbeat, fast and steady.

  No fear.

  Tenderness and anticipation fountained up and enclosed them both, sunlight meeting water.

  Yesssssss. The dragon’s hiss rose to a humming chord, then sank below the surface of his mind, their natures blended in perfect accord as Mikhail bent down and kissed their mate.

  Gently at first, ever so gently. Her lips were soft as rose petals, tasting a little of the salt of tears, and as they opened to him she tasted of fresh apple, the spice of cinnamon, and—deeper—the sweetness that was uniquely her. She opened to his questing tongue, and responded eagerly, torching his inner heat so that he forgot where he was for a heady moment, until they broke apart, breathing hard.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, I never knew a kiss could be like that.”

  It told him so much, and he was aware of a thread of sadness that she, too, had been denied this kind of happiness. He thumbed a tear from her cheek as she said quickly, “It’s not what it looks like. I’m so glad, and so full of questions . . . all my life, being practical and sensible was so important. Because I wasn’t, really. Didn’t want to be. But adults are supposed to be.”

  “Not,” he said, “when such things become iron bars.”

  “Oh, you do understand! Trying to be practical and sensible fitted around me like a box. I think my life became smaller and smaller boxes. Ones I made for myself. And they were pretty boxes,” she added defiantly, lifting a hand toward the rest of her house. “Don’t think I’ve been miserable. I couldn’t be, with a safe home and good friends . . . but there was this other part of me—” She glanced sideways, then stiffened. “Oh! Look at the time!”

  He glanced at her kitchen clock, shocked. Never had an hour and a half passed so quickly. They had six minutes to get to the university.

  He took her hands in hers. “We can risk the automobile, which would require reckless speed. Or there is another way.”

  “Show me,” she whispered, barely a breath.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, drawing her close. “Let us go outside.”

  NINE

  BIRD

  Bird retained just enough sense to use her free hand to grab her purse hanging on its hook by the door. Her left hand was still in his right. She sensed the strength in his fingers, held in a steady grip. A secure grip, light and firm, but in no way constraining, much less impatient, or angry. She knew instinctively that if she twitched or tugged, he would instantly let her free.

  Tears burned her eyes, but they were tears of happiness, wonder, and an upwelling of joy. As they paced not to the street, but around the house to the garden, she glanced at the sky overhead and sent the thought to the universe, If this is a delusion, let me stay in it forever.

  He stopped at the back of the house, away from the street. Mikhail bent and kissed her again, a quick, reassuring kiss that sent flowers of bright desire through her, impossibly bright. Nothing had ever felt like this.

  He stepped away, and then he began to glow. Light shimmered over him, then brightened to a silvery-white beam, as if the moon had sent a part of itself into the rose garden. A heartbeat later the beam flashed into a long shape, shimmered again, and she found herself staring up at an enormous silver . . .

  Dragon.

  Impossible, her old self insisted. But the new self, the one who had kissed Mikhail and been kissed back, breathed out the word, “Ohhh.”

  Because he was beautiful. The great head was framed by gently waving whiskers that glowed with their own light. Above the dragon teeth, huge eyes gazed down with the patient wisdom and benevolence that she knew as Mikhail’s own. The enormous silver-scaled dragon floated in the air, gracefully undulating in the breeze. It—he—must be two hundred feet long, she thought, awe-struck. She had never seen anything so beautiful, so noble and awe-inspiring!

  He drifted closer, and a mellow voice that reminded her of wind instruments or a great organ spoke directly into her mind: Climb on, my love.

  Bird laughed, looking ruefully down her fancy dress, then up again as she eyed the dragon’s great head. He lowered himself to the ground, and somehow shrank so that he wasn’t quite as large or long. Doris’s dress was watered silk in a soft powder blue, loose and floaty so it didn’t impede her limbs. Bird held the skirt away from her with one hand, and found it easy to clamber onto the dragon behind his head. The silver scales were cool, and smooth to the touch. She gave a rueful thought to her hair, which she had washed and curled so carefully after getting back from Doris’s. Well, she supposed she’d get that fashionable “wind-blown” look!

  Mikhail’s great reed-organ dragon-voice entered her mind. I will not let you fall.

  He rose gently into the air, as the back row of floating whiskers formed a softly glowing shelter around her. The entire world scintillated. Though she felt no sense of motion or wind whipping through her hair, the ground fell away and the world spun behind her. Up they rose until the town was a map of twinkling lights below.

  It was the most exhilarating moment Bird had ever experienced. She was actually riding a dragon! And along with the sheer thrill and joy of it came an immense feeling of love for Mikhail, who had trusted her enough to share this secret and wonderful part of himself with her.

  They began to descend. Lights became signs and windows. Roofs rose toward her, and then they were drifting among the university buildings she still remembered, though she had not set food there in nearly thirty years.

  The university’s reception hall was lit up, the row windows sending stripes of light slanting down the broad terrace.

  “What if they see us?” Bird whispered, anxiously watching the people in suits and gowns walking up the steps.

  We are invisible, came the organ voice. Be prepared to step down.

  She barely
had time to think about her sandaled foot touching the ground before she found herself standing on the terrace, Mikhail’s strong arm supporting her back. The shimmer faded, leaving him standing at her side. He had chosen a spot away from the beams of light from the tall windows.

  Bird smiled at him. She had arrived without a hair out of place, or a wrinkle in the silk.

  “Ready?” Mikhail asked, offering his arm.

  “Ready,” she responded, laying her hand on his forearm.

  They started up the stairs. Bird was glad of his presence beside her. The university was Bartholomew’s territory—or so she’d thought of it all these years. But Mikhail’s book had nothing to do with the English Department. She clung to that thought as they approached the open doors of the reception hall.

  It had been so long since she’d had to attend a dressy event, at first everything was a confusion of social voices and laughter, glitter of diamonds on hands, the jewel-tones of the women’s dresses bracketed by the somber grays and blacks of men in suits.

  “Mikhail!” Out of the confusion a man emerged, smiling. A thick mop of silvery blond hair framed his face, one lock flopping on his broad forehead above friendly brown eyes. Like Mikhail, he looked as if he had both Asian and European heritage. “And this is?”

  “Bird,” Mikhail said to her. “May I introduce my old friend Joey Hu? Joey, this is Bird Worcester.”

  Joey’s eyes flashed a brilliant gold as he grinned. “Bird Wooster? Oh, please tell me—”

  His husky voice was so hopeful, so full of enjoyment that for the first time she found herself delighted to say, “Born Bertie Worcester, yes.”

  Joey clasped her right hand with both of his. “How very glad I am to meet you! Let me get you a drink. Mikhail, what are you having?”

  Joey folded them into a sphere of good will, as he began pointing out fellow academics. Guided by this friendly man, Bird watched the ordinary people holding drinks and chattering, many in the stiff poses she remembered from those awful days when she had to attend formal gatherings. Time and distance from those days of dread enabled her now to see that many looked at stiff as she had once felt, their smiles as fixed. She now realized that the professors weren’t all as gregarious and socially adept as she’d assumed.