He shrugged again, squinting wistfully up at the bright blue sky combed with wispy strands of faded white clouds. “Did yer grandmother not tell ye about me when yer sister, Mairi, married Ronan Sutherland?”
Recollection rolled across her, triggering goose bumps across her flesh. The witch’s curse.The Fates’ evil priestess’s fit of jealousy and the wicked spell she had cast, trapping Ronan’s mother into the form of a wolf when the poor woman had been pregnant with Ronan. Then he’d been born a wolf too, living like one of the wild animals until he’d reached the age of puberty and learned he could shift into human form. Both Ronan and his mother had also been protected by a dragon.
She frowned, struggling to remember all the details.No.Not just some magically conjured dragon but another cursed soul who changed back to a man by night and was trapped in the form of a dragon by day. Another victim who’d unknowingly angered the sorceress while she was being drowned for practicing witchery. It had taken Ronan over three hundred years to find the woman capable of breaking the curse to make him mortal again. Her twin sister, Mairi, had been that woman.
Lilia pointed the loop of her reins at Graham. “So . . . you’re the dragon?”
Graham shook his head and leaned toward her just a bit. “Wasthe dragon.” He thumped a fist against his chest and smiled. “As ye can see, I am the dragon no more.” His smile widened and he winked. “And now that the curse is broken, like yer good brother Ronan, I am no longer cursed with immortality.” He sat a bit taller in the saddle and his carefree expression faded, growing thoughtful and almost sad. “Living forever can be a terrible thing—a sad lonely thing that I am glad to be done with.”
Lilia shook her head and urged Odin to resume their ride. There was something about the look in Graham’s eyes that unsettled her—something he wasn’t saying . . . for fear of . . . what? What was he not sharing and why?
She twisted in the saddle and looked back at him again. “Just how old are you and what did you mean when you said you’d been trapped in sameness? If you lived over three hundred years, you had to witness everything changing around you.”
Graham scowled back up at the sky, his eyes narrowing as he scrubbed his fingertips just under his bearded jawline. “I dinna ken exactly how old I am for certain. I was but a young man when the witch cursed me—barely past my twenty-third summer. And even though the spell allowed my human form to age a wee bit over the years, the length of the curse did not send me to the decaying weakness of the grave as it did Ronan’s mother.”
“What? Wait.” Lilia motioned toward an inviting swell in the hillside just a few feet off the path. “Let’s go over there and sit down. Buzz can stretch his short little legs and the horses can enjoy the breeze coming down the hillside while you explain yourself—in better detail.”
Mairi and Granny had barely mentioned any particulars about Graham in his dragon form and neither had wished to dwell on all that had happened at the exact moment the curse had been broken. Lilia hadn’t pushed them. They didn’t need to describe it to her. She’d felt the exhilarating highs and the painful lows of that day through them—as though she’d been there and witnessed the event herself. Whatever had happened that day had created emotions strong enough that the feelings had easily crossed through the fire portal and hit her like a tidal wave.
Lilia pointed a warning finger at Graham. “And don’t leave anything out.”
“Aye, lass. As ye wish.” He easily dismounted, then held up his hands to her. “Come to me. Ye’ve no wee steps to help ye down from the mighty Odin’s back.”
There were those three words again.Come to me.How could three innocent words trigger such a deliciously hot shiver and amp her up tohell yeahmode in the blink of an eye? Lilia clasped her hands atop the saddle horn and shifted the slightest bit. The warm leather between her legs suddenly seemed a bit damp.
Graham’s mustache barely twitched and a knowing look glinted in his eyes as he held up his hands, fingers spread wide, waiting for her to lean down into his arms.
“I know what you’re doing.” She dove into his grasp then quickly slid to the ground and scooted free before he could pull her close.
“Do ye now?” His slow wink shifted her heart rate another notch higher.
Lilia brushed past him and led Odin to the rolling curve of softly waving grasses just behind the moss-covered swell of earth facing the panoramic view of the city below. She settled Buzz down on the grass beside the horse then plopped down on the knob of land and patted the ground beside her. “Have a seat and finish explaining your history.”
An infuriating smile brightened Graham’s face as he led Freya over to join Odin. “There is not that much to explain. I was dragon by day, man by night. Ronan’s mentor and guardian. I dinna ken for sure but I’m fairly certain he and I didna age as severely as his mother because we wished to live past the curse—regain the lives that we had been promised if the wicked spell was ever broken. Ye might say our stubbornness added to our longevity.”
All humor left his expression as he continued, “Ronan’s mother, Iona, her deepest wish was to join the only man she had ever loved—and that man, Ronan’s father, died by the witch’s prophecy a year after the black-hearted wench spoke the words that cursed us all.”
He settled down on the hillside beside her. A sad smile curved his mouth as he stared down at the long blade of grass he’d plucked from a tangled clump and slowly wound between his fingers. “Never let anyone tell ye immortality is a blessing. Outliving all ye have ever loved or known is a cursed, lonely existence—and being tethered to a mist-covered stretch of land or the sea makes that loneliness all the sharper.” His gaze gradually lifted from his hands and he stared out across the land while pulling in a slow deep breath. “All feared the dragon in me and kept their distance over the centuries. All but Ronan and his mother. ’Tis a terrible thing passing yer days with not a companion or heartmate to care if ye live or die.”
She hugged herself against his words. Whether it was his sadness or hers, or an aching combination of both of their emotions eating away at her, she didn’t know. All she knew for certain was, the twisted knot of feelings made the center of her chest hurt. She understood completely how he felt. She’d always felt . . . alone . . . even when living with Granny and her sisters. She supposed it was because she’d always had to keep herself centered and walled off against the emotions of the world. Granny had taught her that was the only way to survive life as a highly tuned empath. And now with Eliza, the only person in this century who really understood her about to die, she would be completely alone.
Alberti and Vivienne had tried their best to convince her they’d fill the void after Eliza’s passing but Lilia knew better. Everyone had their own lives to lead, including her caring friends. Someday, they would move on. The Fates had painfully made her see it, shown her each of her friends’ promising futures in a vision. The paths of her life and those of her friends would eventually split off in their respective directions.
She reached over and barely ran a fingertip down his forearm that rested on his muscular thigh. His light dusting of silver through the dark hair shadowing the hard cut ridges and veins of his bulging muscles made him shimmer in the sunlight. Such strength pulsed beneath that subtle sheen of pale silver and gold. His confession of solitude’s painfulness drew her to him like the moon eternally draws the tide. He understood the gist of her feelings. Completely.
“I know what loneliness is,” she said. “I’ve had to keep everyone away to survive.” A bitter laugh escaped her then she quickly shrugged away the uncomfortably private confession. “Once Eliza moves on and Alberti and Vivienne embrace their fates, I couldgo softly into the nightand not a soul on this side of the time portal would even notice my light was gone.”
Graham turned toward her, slid a finger beneath her chin, and gently lifted, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I will not listen to such,” he said.
He moved in closer, pulling her near and preventing her from turning away. “Yer precious light burns bright and strong against the darkness of this world. I grant ye, if that light was extinguished, it would be sorely missed.”
He leaned in then, until his warm lips brushed her mouth, the softness of his mustache feather-light across her skin. She breathed in the heat of him, a heart-pounding shiver racing through her as his deep voice lowered to a rasping whisper, “I shall see to the tending of yer light, lass.” He took her hand and pressed her palm to the center of his chest and held it there. “I’ll thank ye to see to the tending of my heart.”
“Why . . .” She wet her mouth as she watched the hypnotic motion of the tip of his tongue sliding back and forth across his bottom lip. “Why are you here?” She curled her fingers into the neck of his T-shirt, pulling him closer even though she knew the risk. She should push him away. So much safer if she just pushed him away.She blinked away the annoying voice of reason and rubbed the back of her fingers against the tempting heat of his skin. “Why are you here,” she repeated, unable to resist leaning in to steal a nipping taste of his wetted and primed lips.
“To love ye.” His arm circled around her, then easily pulled her into his lap. He held her close, his need . . . and so much more reaching out to her from the depths of his gaze. He silenced any further questions with a deeper, hotter kiss—one that set off a chain reaction of ripples across every nerve ending from her tingling nipples to the aching wet juncture of her thighs.
She pulled him down with her as he lowered her back across the softness of the hillside. The raw, urgent hunger of his mouth—kissing, tasting, ever so gently biting in all the best places. His teasing hands played lightly across her body, strumming her flesh as though he were a sensual musician and she his beloved instrument. A weak bit of common sense wallowed through the carnal inferno threatening to consume her and rage out of control. “We can’t do this here,” she panted out in a strained whisper. “Someone might see us.”
