Page 8

“Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.”

—Robert Jordan

Toward the end of her speech, Lizzy began to lose focus visually.

Perhaps it was the bright lights. Or the intensity of Ben’s gaze that made her breathless.

Or the champagne she’d drunk earlier that went to her head. She’d never been able to hold her liquor. Alcohol sensitivity, as her mom called it, ran in that side of her genealogy tree.

Distantly, she was aware of a robust round of applause after she finished her last sentence. The loudest claps were led by Ben and his friends, a ruggedly handsome dark-haired man and a dainty Asian woman with a platinum blond pixie cut.

Mr. Bai was clapping resoundingly as well, and two other very tall, very good-looking men in the audience.

All of this Lizzy took in as if her head was filled with cotton and her senses were numbed. She stood immobile, as if her feet had been glued to the wooden stage at some point during her presentation.

While she remained somewhat paralyzed and entranced, she saw an unbelievably beautiful woman take the platform steps and glide toward her, graceful and resplendent in an elaborate bejeweled kebaya , a modernized version of traditional Indonesian dress. Two similarly dressed men, though far more conservative, carried an ornate box between them on a large cushioned base.

Lizzy wondered if she should depart from the stage now. Clearly, the next act had arrived. But her feet refused to move, and her brain was sluggish anyhow in giving the right command.

And then, the woman was upon her.

Amazingly, she linked their arms together as if they knew each other and were even good friends.

But Lizzy had never seen the female before in her life.

“Please give another round of applause to our lovely dragon dreamer, Dr. Elizabeth Winters!” the goddess beside her encouraged in a sultry voice.

Even Lizzy shivered as it flowed over her, like an evocative, teasing caress.

The audience obeyed readily. Who could possibly deny this unearthly vision?

“And now, I’d like to present Dr. Winters with a gift,” the woman murmured softly, though her voice carried easily throughout the ballroom.

Lizzy widened her eyes, her mind thinking, who, me? though her mouth and voice didn’t work to speak the thought out loud.

The woman gestured to her assistants to bring forth the ornate box. She stood to one side of it while Lizzy stood on the other, feet still firmly rooted to the platform.

With languid movements, the goddess unveiled the treasure, her slowness building up the audience’s anticipation. Making Lizzy, too, hold her breath.

A large, egg-shaped hunk of stone was revealed, securely tucked within a bed of silk and memory foam. It was the size of a human head, and it looked heavy, for the strong assistants’ arms strained under the weight of the thing, biceps bulging.

There were oohs and ahhs from the audience. Even if they didn’t believe in dragons, they could appreciate an interesting, ancient-looking artifact.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my royal ancestors’ prized treasure,” the Beauty confided.

“It is said to be tens of thousands of years old, though it has not been officially dated. Formed from volcanic activity that took place on Gunung Padang. As some of you might know, my people are known for their unparalleled diving skills. A very long time ago, an ancestor of mine found a hidden cave deep beneath Gunung Padang and discovered this oddly-shaped rock. Perhaps it is an ossified dinosaur egg.”

She smiled modestly.

“I am no accredited scientist, merely a curious civilian. I’d like to imagine, as my ancestors did, that it might also be a long-lost dragon egg.”

More oohs and ahhs , and now a wave of murmurs and whispers, a few indulgent chuckles and disbelieving titters spilled through the hall.

“What do you think, Dr. Winters? Care to provide your expert assessment?”

She turned toward Lizzy, spearing her with the intensity of her dark, unknowable gaze.

Lizzy stared back, not comprehending what was expected of her. Was this part of a show she wasn’t briefed about? Some sort of impromptu entertainment? A magic trick?

“Go ahead,” the Beauty said quietly so that only Lizzy could hear.

“Touch it.”

The command pushed into Lizzy’s body like a physical force. She couldn’t disobey if she tried.

But then, she didn’t want to disobey. She wanted to touch the stone.

As if her hands and arms had a mind of their own, Lizzy raised and extended them toward the egg-like object. Her palms hovered just above the somewhat rough-looking, patterned surface.

She sensed a warmth that transmitted from the stone to her hands, or was it from her hands to the stone? There was a frisson of awareness, a kinetic energy between them. For a breath-held moment, she really thought it could be a dragon egg.

Finally, she settled both palms on it.

It was cool to the touch, not warm like she thought. It felt like any other rock or stone. She roved her hands all over it, caressing the outside, gently brushing her fingertips around the rough patterns.

It was a beautiful stone, actually. Because it seemed so heavy, it must be solid inside, though it could also be filled with crystals like a giant geode. She didn’t have the equipment to determine how old it was, and besides, she was no expert in geology. The outside of the rock gave no obvious visual clues.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that a small frown marred the Beauty’s otherwise serene expression. As if she wasn’t seeing what she wanted to see. As if Lizzy was letting her down somehow.

After a couple of moments, her expression cleared. The corners of her full lips quirked up in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

She turned back to the audience at large.

“Well, there you have it, my friends. A lovely old rock for a lovely archeologist.”

A few people laughed. Lizzy could hear some of her detractors guffaw with snide derision.

“A gift on your birthday, dragon dreamer,” the Beauty said to Lizzy.

“Enjoy.”

With that, the assistants set the ornate box with the stone on the stage, and followed behind the Beauty, who glided away in long, purposeful strides. They disappeared through a back door as if they were never here.

As if Lizzy had imagined it all.

But the stone at her feet remained, and the audience still looked expectantly at her. Her feet were still too heavy to move. She felt helplessly exposed and embarrassed.

Blinded by the bright lights on stage, still inexplicably dizzy and semi-paralyzed, she scanned the audience for a friendly face, a helping hand.

Jing started to move toward her.

But before he took two steps, a strong arm wrapped around her waist.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Ben’s low rasp beside her ear made her shiver with relief.

He helped her off the stage, making it look as if she was gracefully walking on her own steam, but in fact, he all but carried her off with only one arm around her waist. Her feet barely touched the ground. Meanwhile, his friends carried the heavy box and stone off as well.

As they disappeared into the back room behind the stage, Lizzy heard the moderator step up to announce the next presentation. The event continued as planned.

“What’s wrong with her?” the small Asian woman asked when Ben swooped Lizzy completely into his arms, carrying her as the three of them headed into the stairwell.

“Probably drugged. Potentially bespelled,” was Ben’s terse response.

Drugged? Bespelled?

Lizzy was awash with consternation. Such words defied her experience of the world to date. But in her numbed-out state, any panic or fear she might have felt were muffled by a cottony sort of calmness. A reassuring warmth.

Or maybe that was just because of Ben’s strong arms around her.

They climbed a dozen flights of stairs until they arrived at the rooftop of the hotel. Neither Ben nor his friends seemed winded at all from the exertion, even though Ben carried Lizzy (she was no feather; she liked food), and his friends carried the box with the stone in it.

“Any thoughts on what just happened?” the imposing, bearded warrior said.

And he was a warrior, Lizzy thought, looking at the man. There was no other word for it, for all the elegant clothes he wore.

In fact, all three of them looked like anachronisms in this modern age. They all had a certain edge of danger and mystique to them, as if they hailed from another time, another realm.

But that was ridiculous, Lizzy thought. Her imagination was getting away from her again.

“My guess is Sinaga wanted to test Lizzy,” Ben said.

Lizzy looked up at him, still held securely in his arms.

Test me how? She asked in her mind, though she had yet to speak.

He looked down at her as if he heard her.

“She wanted you to touch the stone. She looked disappointed when nothing happened.”

But I felt a strange heat from the object , she thought.

“It seems to be an ordinary though oddly-shaped stone,” the Asian woman said, looking down at it.

“It’s very pretty,” she murmured, going to her haunches and setting one pale hand lightly on top of it.

And suddenly, before their very eyes, the stone seemed to shake a little, almost as if it was shimmying its bottom on the silk pillow.

“Did you see that?” the woman asked with amazement.

Lizzy sure did!

The bearded warrior went to his haunches too, also laying a hand on top of it.

The stone shook again, and this time, it pulsed with a pale green light.

What in the world was going on?!

The light now encapsulated the entire stone, brighter and brighter, seeming to penetrate the outer layer, illuminating what lay within.

Dragon , Lizzy whispered in her mind.

It might look like a strangely shaped lump that could very well be those geode crystals she thought about earlier, but to her, it looked like a baby dragon, curled around itself, its nose meeting its tail. She could almost make out the bulges of its closed eyes.

It was either a peculiar grouping of ossified material, perhaps even a baby dinosaur, or it was an unborn dragon sleeping peacefully in the protective confines of its egg.

Lizzy wanted to believe in the latter.

“ Mine ,” both the warrior and the woman said in unison, meeting each other’s gaze as they held the egg.

“Yours,” Ben agreed, giving them a nod like a king to his subjects.

Who is he? Lizzy wondered with…well…wonder, as she gawked with rounded eyes at Ben’s arrestingly beautiful face.

Who are they?

Lizzy’s sluggish mind couldn’t quite compute the scene before her.

“Take it to a safe location,” Ben commanded.

“Take it home. It’s too dangerous to keep it here. I have a feeling the others will come looking for it, even if Sinaga supposedly gave it to Lizzy.”

His friends did not delay. Immediately, they both rose to their feet, the woman holding the stone—no, the egg —in her arms as if it weighed nothing.

The man, on the other hand…

He transformed into a gigantic, winged lapis lazuli dragon that took up a quarter the rooftop!

Half of Lizzy was shocked into a stupor, and the other half was jumping up and down in glee.

She couldn’t possibly be dreaming. This couldn’t be her imagination running wild.

This was real!

There was a dragon the size of a small house on the hotel rooftop!

He lowered a scaly, shimmery wing to the ground, and the woman climbed on top of his back with the egg. Without a moment’s delay, he flapped those sail-like wings—making Lizzy squeeze her eyes almost entirely shut against the massive gusts of wind he created—and took off.

The dragon who was a man flew right off the rooftop!

And that was when Lizzy’s paralysis finally resolved itself.

“You better put me down and start talking,” she said firmly to Ben, who turned back to her after seeing his friends off.

“Who are you really, Benjamin Larkin D’Angelo?”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

As loathe as Ben was to release her, Lizzy’s expression brooked no argument.

He set her down on the concrete ground of the rooftop but kept one arm around her waist, keeping her close.

Just as he anticipated, her small hands were already pushing gently against his chest, trying to step back from his embrace. He would grant her wish for some distance, but in a moment.

Right now, he bent close and nuzzled her cheek with his nose and mouth, rasping huskily into her ear:

“Who do you think I am, dragon dreamer?”

He could hear her heartbeat as if it were his own. Like a hummingbird, it fluttered, as if trying to escape the cage of her chest. Her pulse, too, was leaping wildly, and her breaths came short and fast.

He could smell her arousal as her body turned up the temperature, liquifying her insides at his nearness. He would bet she wore a simple white cotton panty. She was that type of woman. Fruit of the Loom all the way. No lacy lingerie for Lizzy.

He wondered if it was drenched already between her legs. He wanted to feel it. Wanted to taste her slick on his tongue.

“B-Ben,” she stuttered on a shaky huff.

“Let go.”

With the utmost reluctance, he did as she bid, unwinding his arm from around her waist.

She wasted no time to stumble back a step. Then another just to be safe. As if he was a roaring bonfire, and she was liable to get burned if she wasn’t careful.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Now start from the beginning,” she demanded with hands on hips, her serious professorial demeanor firmly in place.

“What just happened?”

He cocked his head at her, calculating how much truth she could handle. Given her soul, he bet on a lot .

So, he didn’t hold back.

“I’ll take the ‘beginning’ you mean to be the beginning of this evening. Perhaps the beginning of this conference,” he said.

She gave a hesitant nod, clearly wondering what other “beginning” there was.

“My friends and I came here to find the eggs. There are nine dragon eggs scattered around the world.”

“So they are dragon eggs!” she breathed reverently in awe.

“It would seem so,” he confirmed.

“But it looked like solid stone before your friends touched it…” she murmured quizzically.

“It seems that that particular egg is destined to belong to Wolfe and Rui,” Ben deduced. He also hadn’t anticipated what would happen before it happened.

“The bearded warrior you saw who turned into a dark blue dragon, and the Asian woman with the short hair,” he explained when she frowned slightly at the names.

“She’s actually also a dragon—a small blue-green treasure dragon.”

“No kidding,” she whispered in wonder, eyes wide and shining with pure delight.

“Dead serious,” he replied, smiling at her expression.

Like a child on Christmas morning.

“Wow. I would have liked to see her transform.”

“You will, one day,” he promised.

He fully intended to Mate her, and as such, she would get to know his family and friends intimately in due time.

But now was not the time to make her more skittish with his intentions. She was clearly already turning over his words in her mind, wondering why they sounded like a vow.

When he didn’t say more about it, she visibly shook herself, getting back to the topic at hand.

“So, you think the egg was…activated somehow by their touch?”

“Perhaps,” he allowed.

“But I wonder why Kirana Sinaga wanted you to touch it, Lizzy.”

“Is that the name of that gorgeous woman? She is inhumanly beautiful,” she said admiringly, without an ounce of envy in her tone.

“Like a goddess come down to earth.”

“She is a powerful Immortal,” Ben shared directly. “Likely a Pure One with an affinity to the Element water, our sources say.”

Lizzy blinked owlish eyes up at him, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times without words.

“A what? With a what?” she finally uttered.

Ben shook his head. There was too much to explain. For now, she just needed to know the basics.

“She is indeed…superhuman,” he said. “There are a few others at the conference who are like her, but also different. Powerful and supernatural in their own right.”

Lizzy mulled on this for some silent moments.

“Why was I paralyzed on stage after my speech?” she thought out loud.

“I mean, I do have a little stage fright, but I’ve never been…numbed before. Like I couldn’t feel my own legs and feet. Like they were actually anvils anchoring me to the ground. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak. It was…disconcerting.”

If paralysis and muteness were merely “disconcerting” to her, his Lizzy clearly had balls of steel. Nothing seemed to faze her.

Yet.

“One of them could have used their Gift on you. Immortals are sometimes imbued with certain powers,” Ben said vaguely.

He didn’t want to disconcert her even more if he didn’t have to.

“Did you drink or eat anything earlier? Something could have been spiked also,” he offered a more typical explanation.

“Jing gave me a flute of champagne,” she said. “But why would he drug me?”

She shook her legs and fluttered her hands, looking down at herself.

“I’m okay now. Whatever it was, it’s worn off.”

“It’s possible Jing had something to do with it.”

Ben wanted to paint him in a bad light and push the theory harder, but even with his newly discovered possessive streak, his sense of fairness won out.

“But even if the drink was doctored, it could have done by someone else.”

“Maybe even by that Sinaga woman,” Lizzy said. “She seemed unsurprised that I couldn’t move or speak. Even expected it. If something happened when I touched the stone—I mean, egg—what would she have done? Get those assistants of hers to whisk me away?”

Given that Sinaga was an Immortal, she would have been more than capable of abducting Lizzy herself, but Ben didn’t say so.

“Well, if inhuman beauty is anything to go by,” she murmured, following her own train of thought, “I would guess Jing Bai could be…special too. And I saw two other really tall men in the audience briefly while I was on stage. It’s like I couldn’t see anyone else. The rest of the crowd simply became a blur.”

Ben inclined his head.

“Yes, Bai is an Immortal as well. The other two men you noticed are Alexander Galanis and Imran Bayat. They are Dark Ones.”

Lizzy met his gaze again, searching his face, her bright, curious eyes sparkling in the dark night.

“And you, Ben? Are you one of them too?”

He hesitated before answering.

Thus far, he’d been entirely truthful with her. He didn’t intend to ever deceive her, even if he withheld certain details (of which, there were many, given their past incarnations).

She’d been handling everything he’d thrown at her with calm acceptance. He knew it wouldn’t be long before she started asking the hows, whys and wherefores of immortal beings.

But for a brief moment, he wanted to remain “human” to her. He wanted her to know him and want him for himself. Not that knowing he was “other” would prevent it.

But…

It complicated things.

Nevertheless, he told her the truth:

“I am a Beast with a Pure One base.”

She blinked silently up at him, her eyes scampering over his body like a caffeinated squirrel.

“A beast…” she echoed in a hush.

He could practically hear the gears of her scientific brain whirring.

“Does that mean you can turn into an animal?” she cleverly guessed.

“What kind?”

He took the step that closed the distance between them. Slowly, he reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. She tracked his movement with her round eyes the way a small, paralyzed animal tracked a much larger predator.

“What do you think, Lizzy?” he rumbled in his deepest voice, letting the dragon in him add its resonant purr to the words.

Dragon .

He could hear her thought as if she’d shouted it. He could see her eyes brighten into twin stars at the mere notion of it. She was so excited by the possibility that her whole body was vibrating like a struck tuning fork.

Tuned only to him.

“I think…” she said breathlessly. Then swallowed and began again.

“I think I’m going to need proof.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The smile he gave her started small.

Then, it grew like a ribbon unfurling slowly across his full, generous lips, until those perfect white teeth were revealed, made even brighter by the dark night.

His eyes lit up next, as if a fire was stoked from glowing embers to a roaring blaze within them. Until they shone with an inner light, like the brightest star in the sky. Gorgeous lines fanned from the corners as if he was the kind of man who smiled easily. And his long, lush lashes shaded the shimmering pools of his eyes like feathered fans.

Good lord, he was beautiful, Lizzy reflected in absolute awe and wonder.

Beyond beautiful.

Beyond breathtaking.

He was so mesmerizing to her, she wouldn’t have been able to look away if her life depended on it.

“Come,” he beckoned her with that deep, husky voice.

There was a growling undertone, and that same beastly purr she heard earlier.

A part of her recognized beyond the shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t quite human. He was more .

So much more.

And instead of being frightened, or at the very least wary, she was scarily turned on by it. Thrilled and breathless with the wonder of it.

Somehow, she knew what he wanted with that single command. She stepped into his big, hard body on tiptoes until they were pressed close together all along their torsos, and wound her arms around his neck.

He immediately locked his arms around her waist, lifting her clear off her feet.

And then…

He lifted them both straight off the ground!

Gigantic wings unfurled behind his broad back as if they’d been there all along.

Now she knew why his back was so broad, and his shoulders were so wide. They had to be to support those fantastical wings.

They spanned at least twenty-five to thirty feet in either direction, from base to tip. Far more magnificent than any angel wings that had ever been captured by human imagination. The inside had ribbing that looked harder than steel, the tissue connecting them like the toughest armor, yet smooth and silky looking at the same time.

The outside was covered by metallic discs that looked both like scales as well as feathers. The smaller discs closer to his shoulders were scale-like, the better to stack closely together the way chainmail did on a medieval armor. The underside of his wings as well as the tips were lined with increasingly longer discs that were feather-like, though their metallic shine and sharp edges were the antithesis of the softness of feathers.

Warrior Angel .

That’s what he looked like with those wide-spread wings that flapped effortlessly as he took them higher and higher into the sky.

Benjamin Larkin D’Angelo.

Warrior Angel indeed.

“I’m not dreaming, am I,” Lizzy whispered, staring up into Ben’s star-like eyes.

It wasn’t a question. There was no upward lilt at the end. But she sought confirmation all the same.

“No, sweetheart,” he rumbled.

“You’re not dreaming.”

“Wow,” was all she could say.

He did something different with his wings now, or with the torque of his body, because they were suddenly spinning slowly in the air, as if they were waltzing amongst the stars.

“So…you’re a bird-man? An eagle-man?” she asked, and couldn’t keep the slight disappointment out of her voice despite how magnificent he was with those incredible wings.

That slow smile spread across his lips again.

“This is my half form,” he explained. “Unlike other full-blooded Beasts, I have the ability to change parts of my body in addition to the whole transformation. Look down.”

She did, lowering her head and eyes between them just in time to see his feet, encased in expensive leather shoes, elongate into much larger claws, the shoes simply disappearing.

“Oh,” she breathed, fascinated and impressed.

She looked back up into his face, searching his eyes.

“What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?”

In answer, he grinned wide and shifted her to be held only by one arm. Before she could blink, she found herself clutched in the claw of the biggest, baddest, most stupendous gold and diamond dragon that defied all of her fantasies and dreams combined.

If her eyes got any wider, they’d surely fall out of their sockets. Somehow, she managed to keep her mouth shut against the gusts of wind created by his majestic wings.

But really, she wanted to gape. Her jaw wanted to fall off its hinges.

She was consternated and awed and mesmerized beyond anything she could have ever imagined.

Are you ready, Lizzy mine?

The dragon bent his scaly, horned head close to her, his giant maw gently breathing on her face as if taking in her scent, blue-green diamond eyes intent.

Somehow she understood him. Heard him. She didn’t wonder how. She simply accepted that she could.

As ready as I’ll ever be , she thought, knowing that he could hear her too.

Show me.

Suddenly, he opened his claw and she was instantly in a free fall, weightless. She didn’t panic; she trusted him. And he didn’t disappoint. He flipped easily in the air and came beneath her, catching her directly on a spot on his back that seemed made specifically for her.

And when she was securely seated, her hands gripping a couple of oddly-shaped scales that seemed like handles, he dove hard and fast, gaining speed and momentum, shooting through the night sky like a blazing star.

They flew through clouds and tumbled in glorious loops like a rollercoaster. They climbed to the stratosphere like a rocket, then plummeted down like a streaking comet.

And all the while, Lizzy couldn’t keep the wide, beatific, teeth-baring grin off her face. She was so incandescently happy, felt so weightlessly free.

She lifted her arms in the middle of it, holding on with only her legs. Yet somehow, he never made her feel less than secure in her seat on his back. Even if she lost it somehow, she knew that he would always catch her.

She would always be one with him.

Beneath them, the bright lights of Bangkok blinked like candles and lanterns around the Chao Phraya River. They were high enough in the sky that the stars no longer had to compete with the city lights. She reached out her hands toward them. As if she could touch them. And in her imagination, she did.

He literally gave her the moon and stars.

He flew her far beyond the city, over the ocean too, then doubled back again. And as they approached the hotel, a series of fireworks exploded into the sky, part of the planned extravaganza of the night.

They blossomed like flowers one by one beneath them to Lizzy’s endless delight. And then, he dove directly into the blazing sparks, his metallic scales mirroring their light, yet keeping his body camouflaged so that anyone looking from below could only see the fireworks, not a giant dragon flying through them.

All around her, the sparks and flames exploded. Yet somehow, they never harmed her, as if she was encapsulated in her very own protective bubble on his back.

She felt a rumble start within him, deep in the core of him. The rumble moved through his body like a small earthquake until it reached his throat and finally his jaws—

As he opened his mouth and let loose a stream of golden dragonfire amidst the dazzling display.

Distantly, she could hear cheers and shrieks of excitement from below. The audience on the ground must have seen his flames mixing with the fireworks. They must have thought it was part of the show, some special firework that burned brighter, lasted longer.

He did it again and again, creating rings of flames in the sky that he dove through, chains of light that he wove around.

Lizzy shrieked too. She couldn’t help it. She was like a child on her first rollercoaster. And it was the biggest, wildest ride of her life.

She couldn’t stop shrieking and laughing, clapping her hands, screaming like a maniac. Tears streamed down her face. Tears of happiness and awe she simply couldn’t contain.

And when the last fireworks faded into the dark sky, her dragon slowed his flight until they seemed to be waltzing again. Until he became a winged man again.

Her warrior angel.

And she was in his arms again, slowly descending, spinning, dancing in the air.

Until her feet finally touched the ground of the hotel rooftop again. But he didn’t let her go.

“Happy birthday, Lizzy mine,” Ben husked in that deep, growly, rumbly, purring voice, making her shiver in the best of ways, his diamond-like aquamarine eyes gazing intensely into hers.

“Is there anything else I can give you on this special day?”

For once, Lizzy didn’t think too hard. She didn’t let her brain calculate the most rational response. Didn’t let her internal algorithm hold her back.

For once, she just blurted the first thing her heart and soul latched onto:

“Kiss,” she said, staring up at him beseechingly.

“I would like a proper birthday kiss. Please and thank you.”