Dragon's Heart (8 page)

“Hi,
Mom, is Dad on the line, too?”

“Maya
sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice came across clearly, like she stood in the next
room instead of across an ocean. “What’s going on? Dad’s not here, but we
thought you were going on to Paris yesterday?”

“How…how
do you know I’m not in Paris?” Damn, with everything going on she’d forgotten
to call them.

“Justin
called. He flew over to surprise you. Imagine our surprise when he called to
say you weren’t there.”

“
What
!”
The idiot! She’d have to give him a piece of her mind for butting into her
affairs. “He had no business doing that. In fact, I told him not to come.”

“I
don’t understand. He didn’t tell us you spoke. He seemed to think it would be a
wonderful surprise for you. Where are you?”

“I’m
sorry, Mom. I changed my plans. It looks like I’ll be staying in Ireland for
the rest of my trip.”

“But
where are you, honey? Justin said he tried your inn and someone told him you
had checked out. He got us worried. It’s not like you to change your mind like
this. Did something happen? What made you change your mind?”

“Nothing’s
happened, Mom. I’m fine. I just decided to stay in Ireland, that’s all. And
Justin should not have worried you guys. I planned to call you later to let you
know I decided to stay after all.”

“Well
where are you staying if you’re not at the Sperrin Inn?”

“I’m
staying with…a friend.” Maya hesitated, not really knowing how to explain
Draakar to her mother. She couldn’t explain him to herself. “I’ll call Justin
and let him know everything is all right and he shouldn’t have bothered you
with this.” And to tell him to mind his own business.

“What
friend?” her mother asked. “I didn’t realize you knew anybody over there.”

“Just
someone I met while I’ve been here.”

“Who
is this person?”

“Just
a friend, Mom. I’m perfectly fine.” Or so Maya hoped.

Her
mother sighed. “Your father and I are just concerned, honey, and Justin cares
about you, too.”
 

She
wanted to turn around and go back to the sitting room to glare at Draakar.
 
Sure he could hear every word she said
to her mother. Could he hear her mother, too?

Yes. I can. And I’m more than just
your friend.

Maya
whipped her head around to scowl at him through the open doorway.

“Listen, Mom, I have to go.
Tell Dad I said hi and not to worry. I’m fine.”

“Well,
what do I tell Justin if he calls? Where exactly are you staying now? And
what’s this friend’s name?”

“Don’t
worry about Justin. Like I said, I’ll call him on his cell as soon as I hang
up.”

“Wait,
where are you staying? How will Dad and I be able to reach you?”

“You
can always call me on my cell, Mom, or send me an e-mail or text.”

“Well,
what’s with the secrecy? Why can’t you tell me where you’re staying and with
whom?”

Maya
hesitated again. How could she tell her mother the truth? What could she tell
her?
 
“It’s no secret.
 
I’m staying at a castle, Mom.”

“A
castle!”

“That’s
right and I really have to go now.”

“All
right, Maya. As long as you promise to check in with us again tomorrow so we
know you’re all right. I also expect a more detailed explanation as to your
whereabouts, and who this friend is you’re staying with. I know your father
would like to talk to you too, but he had to run down to the department to help
monitor the phones this evening. He won’t be back until late tonight.”

Since
her dad retired, he sometimes volunteered to cover the fire department phones
if any of the operators needed time off or when they were short handed. “Mom,
I’m an adult. I know what I’m doing.” She hoped. “Tell Dad everything is fine
and I’ll call you guys tomorrow.
 
I
love you. Give Dad a kiss for me.”

After
disconnecting the call, she checked her phone, which she’d turned off while in
the hospital. Sure enough she had missed calls from both Justin and her folks,
she was almost sorry she’d turned the thing back on in the car. She returned to
the sitting room and sat down in the matching chair next to Draakar.

“Why
didn’t you tell her where you were and who I am?” he asked.

“I
don’t really know where I am since this,” Maya waved her arm in a wide arch to
indicate the entire structure, “wasn’t here yesterday and may not be here
tomorrow.
 
Since I don’t really
know who or what you are, I can’t very well tell her about you either.”

A
low rumble of laughter sounded in her mind.

“Yes.
I can see how that might pose a dilemma for you. Let me assure you the castle
will be here as long as there are Akgons here, and I will be here awhile.”

“That’s
reassuring,” Maya replied sarcastically. Draakar’s eyebrows rose
 
teasingly at her remark. She read his
pleasure with her as if he’d voiced it and shook her head in an effort to clear
his thoughts out of it. “Let’s try something easy. Why don’t you start by
telling me why Ian calls you ‘Lord’? Are you an Irish Lord or Laird?”

“That’s
Scottish, but I am a Lord, and my title is one older than Erin, conferred by
right as well as might. No one granted it, I was born to it.”

“Okay,
so not an easy question. I’m not sure I understand.” Maya frowned. “And why
would he call me Lady? Ian used it like a title.”

“Let
me start by telling you about who and what we are. But go ahead and eat.” He
picked up the platter and handed it to her. After she took it and began eating
he poured her a glass of water and placed it near her before relaxing back into
the chair. His long fingers rested casually on the material of the chair arm.
They weren’t overly thick but like the rest of him, lean and strong. What would
his touch be like? The thought had her wrenching her mind away from his hands and
back to what he said.
 

“The
brethren are creatures that are both dragon and human, one and the same,” he
explained. “Not separated by one side of the same coin, rather picture a coin
where one side is a dragon and human and the other side is human and dragon. We
are not separate creatures that co-exist but are truly one creature with one
soul in two forms.”

“I
think I understand.
 
Is your human
form the dominant one?”

“Yes
and no. As a human, my dragon within is my guide. As a dragon, my human within
is my guide. Both forms exist at the same time, but you only see the outward
appearance of one at a time.”

“I
get it, and the form you don’t see sorta acts like a conscience.”

“Something
like that.”

“Is
that…is that the voice I hear in my head?”

“Yes,
in a manner of speaking, but the voice is your own.”

“How
come I’ve never heard it before? How come nothing like this has ever happened
to me before?” She continued eating, waiting for his reply.

“Nothing
like this has happened in over a thousand years.” Maya open her mouth to ask
another question, but Draakar held up his hand palm up, fingers spread, halting
her. “Talon’s coming here called to the dragon blood of those nearby. Called to
you. When I came back, I further called forth the dragon blood of a few brethren—as
Dragon Lord, I have the power to do that—and awaken the dormant dragon
within.”

She
lifted her hand and swatted the air. “Came back? Came back from where? A
thousand years? What happened a thousand years ago?”

“It
has been more than a thousand years since brethren walked the earth.”

“But…”
Her brows crinkled in confusion. “But you called me brethren and I’ve always
been here.”

“Yes.
The ones I called are the descendants of the brethren who stayed behind. Those
that stayed had to sacrifice their dragon, their magicks to become fully human.
These are the ancestors of the human brethren that exist today. You are human,
but dragon blood flows in your veins. It is strong in a few but weak in a
majority. Most of the human brethren will not be able to change into their
dragon forms or even heed my call. The ones I have called to me are amongst the
strongest.”

Okay,
way beyond her realm of comprehension, and yet…. “What happened to the rest of
the brethren? Why did they leave? Where’d they go?”

D
raakar smiled at her questions and curiosity. The fact
she hadn’t run from him in fear gave him hope, but she needed to know more,
much more.

“Understand
it was a difficult time for us. The time of man and the one God had begun.
Religion supplanted and usurped magicks, or magic as you call it, and fewer
people believed.” He paused to run his hand over his hair. “And if you did you
were condemned. The Earth magicks sustaining our powers and life energies
weakened and we didn’t know why exactly. Dragons were once powerful creatures,
something to be feared, but when we were at our weakest, humans hunted us.
Things got worse when one of our own, the betrayer, divulged secrets of the
dragon, making us vulnerable and allowing us to be killed. With our magicks so
weak we were easier prey for humans. The brethren were slowly being
exterminated. Where once we numbered hundreds of thousands, we were down to
mere thousands.”

Her
hand flew over her chest. “That’s horrible. Why would people hunt you?
 
Murder you? Why would one of your own
betray you?”

“Fear.
People fear what they do not understand or see as different from what they
know. We had powers humans didn’t, and the betrayer thought with so many
powerful dragons destroyed, the magicks left would be his to control. He would
rule this realm unchallenged. He was wrong. The amount of magicks he can draw
forth from Mother Earth, is determined by the amount of internal power he can
control. While his powers are great, it would have been beyond his abilities.
Besides, Mother Earth would never have allowed him control of that much of her
magicks.”

“You
speak of Mother Earth like she’s a real thing,” Maya said. “An entity.”

“And
so she is. She manifest’s the powers of the earth, of nature, and can channel
this to brethren.”

“So
this entity, Mother Earth,” Maya began, “would have stopped him from taking
control?”
 

“Of
accessing her powers, but he would still have powers of his own. Human kind had
no idea what would have happened to it had he been successful in destroying the
brethren. He fed the fear, and drove humans to hunt us. The world was made up
of the One God and the old ways were considered the ways of evil. They had to
be wiped out.
 
Dragons had to be
erased from the face of the planet.”

“So
what happened? How did any of you survive?” Maya asked.

“Some
changed. They fully embraced their humanity. They literally cut off part of
themselves to do it. They drained their magicks, thereby killing their dragons,
living only half a life. Fewer still simply ended their existence. The majority
of us traveled to the realm of our beginning, Akgon.”

Her
eyes narrowed as she stared at him. “Us? You talk as though you were there.”

He
returned her stare. “I was.”

“That’s…”
She stopped in mid-speak and blinked. “What am I saying? Of course it’s
possible.
 
Why not? Your son can
disappear. Castles can appear and disappear. Dragons are real.
 
So of course you can be more than a
thousand years old.” Maya took a drink of water then looked him up and down.
“Though, you don’t look a day over three hundred and fifty, if that,” she
finished flippantly.

He
frowned. “Ah…actually…”

“No.”
She held up one hand and placed the glass back on the table she held in the
other. “Don’t tell me.”

This
time he smiled before he answered. “I’m quite a bit more than a thousand years
old.”

She
shifted restlessly in the chair. “How much more?”

“Maya,
I’m almost two thousand years old.”

The
shocked expression on her face made him smile even more. “I know the world as
you know it no longer exists. But there is much to look forward to.”

“I’m
sorry.” She shook her head. “This is a lot. Dragons and magic, legend and myth,
are real? So is reality a lie?”

“Not
at all. There are just many versions of it.”

Her
head dropped forward until it rested on her knees.

“Are
you all right?” he asked.

“Uh-huh”
came a muffled reply. She waved one hand in the air. “Just give me a second.”

He
leaned forward and turned more toward her. “Breathe, Maya.”

“Okay,
okay, ah, yeah.” She sat up and leaned her head against the back of the chair.
“I guess there’s no going back to that ignorant reality. So, where were we? Oh
yeah, you’re over two thousand years old. Oh, God! Uh, how old is Talon?”

“He’s
barely past hatchling. He’s only a little over four hundred years old.”

“Four…four,
huh! Okay.”

“It
will be okay. I promise. Everything will be all right now.”

“So,”
Maya took a deep breath, “go on. You were saying you left. And where’d you go
again?”

“We
went back to the land we came from, Akgon.”

“So
you’re not human? You’re not from Earth?”

“Yes
and no.”

“Jeez,
enough with the yes and no answers.”

Draakar
smiled again at her reaction. She actually took all of this rather well. “We
are human. Part of us is human.”

“That’s
impossible.”

“Nothing
is impossible.”

“Okay,
okay. Let’s let that one go for now. So you went back to where you guys came
from, Akgon. So why are you here now?”

“The
magick on Akgon is weakening. Our life energies are linked to the magicks of
our world. When the magick, weakens we weaken to the point we eventually die.”
He did not add the conduit the magick flowed through was him, and his magick
had been slowly weakening without his truemate to nourish his life energy.

Without
Sierran to help sustain his magic, the brethren would not have survived as long
as they had. Now strength and power coursed through his veins. Stronger even
than the first time he left Earth or left Akgon because he and his truemate
were finally in the same place, in the same time. What powers would they
unleash with a mating!

“Wait
a minute,” Maya said, “I thought that was your ‘realm’ so why would you be weak
there? For that matter, why’d you leave it to begin with?”

“I
did not. None of the brethren that returned with me had ever been on
Akgon.
 
We are Earth born, but
Talon and others were born on Akgon after we arrived.”

“Well
were there other brethren already there?”

“No
and it’s not clear why the original brethren left.”

“I’m
confused. Akgon is your surname and the name of your realm.”

“Surnames
are a recent human custom. Akgon is the birthplace of the brethren and thus the
surname we use today on Earth.”

She
nodded. “Okay, so why are you here now?”

“Because
the brethren are being threatened again. The answers to our survival are here.
I also believe Earth is in danger. I need your help, Maya.”

She
shrugged. “I don’t know. What can I do? With all the magicks you seem to
possess, I don’t see how I can help you. Until yesterday, I didn’t know
creatures, beings…like you, existed. You were something to be found in a book.
No strike that.
 
I’ve never found
the likes of you in any book.”

Draakar
smiled and his eyes got brighter.

 
Shudders rippled through her body but
not in fear. “Please don’t do that glowie thing with your eyes.”

“Why?”

“It’s
just kinda creepy.” She lied and they both knew it.

“They
merely mirror your own.”

“My
own? What are you talking about? My eyes don’t…” Maya stopped and got up to
look at herself in the small antique mirror on the wall beside the mantle. The
face staring back at her was one she’d seen every day of her adult life, but
the eyes, the eyes belonged to someone—
something
else. They glowed. In shock, she continued to stare at
her reflection. The glow got stronger and brighter, until two tails of golden
flames shot out of her eyes toward the mirror. The sound of breaking glass
echoed around the room.