Pia Saves the Day

Chapter Six

“I think going home is a great idea,” Pia said slowly.

For such an unbearable nightmare, things were actually beginning to look up. Dragos had shapeshifted into his human form, and he was talking to her. Really talking, not growling or roaring (or biting), or barking orders.

Also, she was intensely relieved that he had figured out the nature of their relationship for himself. He didn’t feel any of the emotions, and that hurt like a burning knife had been thrust into her chest, but at least she didn’t have to try to find some way to tell him and watch any possible disbelief cross his expression.

Her lips were dry. She hadn’t hydrated enough after her climb, and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. His gaze dropped to the small movement and grew intent, although his hard expression remained closed to her scrutiny.

He was still so suspicious, and that hurt too. Her own logic scolded her. Of course he would be suspicious. Suspicion was part of the dragon’s nature. He had been a solitary creature for so long, with a predatory nature and an ancient, primitive past, and he was quick to war. He had a history of enemies that went back millennia.

This present mess wasn’t his fault. None of this was anybody’s damned fault. It was just a random, horrible accident that had happened, but it was still hard for her not to take things personally.

She had to stay braced. Seeing their house might not help his memories to return, but it might just help him to relax and learn to trust her a bit more. Anything would be better than the cold, confrontational attitude with which he had greeted her earlier.

He still touched her, the hard fingers of his hand curled under her chin. She still touched him, her own hand curled around his muscled forearm.

He would never let an enemy remain in such intimate contact with him. The realization fed the stubborn hope of hers that refused to die.

She gave him a tentative smile. “When would you like to leave?”

He didn’t return the smile. That fierce gold gaze of his never left her mouth. “Now.”

Nodding, she stood and glanced down at the fire. “I guess we didn’t need to build this after all.”

He straightened when she did, with that quick, lithe grace of his that belied his muscular bulk. “That remains to be seen,” he said shortly. He passed a hand over the fire, and his Power flexed, dampening the flames. “It will still be here if needed.”

Clenching her muscles, she forced herself not to flinch. Of course, just because he wanted to see their home didn’t mean he was committed to staying there.

At least, not yet.

Walking to her pack, she dug in the side pocket for the satellite phone. As Dragos watched, she punched in Graydon’s number. When Graydon answered, she told him, “We’re going back to the house now.”

Graydon said carefully, “That sounds promising.”

She could tell by the neutrality in his voice and words that Graydon knew very well Dragos could hear everything he said. Pia glanced at Dragos, who watched her every move with a sharp frown.

She told Graydon, “It’s great news. I didn’t want you to worry. I’ll call when I can.”

“Make it soon, okay?”

Dragos prowled close. He growled, “Who was that male?”

Was that a touch of jealousy? She didn’t dare smile, but for the first time in almost two days, the heaviness in her heart lightened a little.

She also wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that he didn’t remember Graydon. She and Dragos had only been together fourteen months, but he had known Graydon for much, much longer. The damage to his memory seemed profound.

Meeting his fierce gaze, she told him calmly, “That was one of your best friends. He’s been worried about both of us.”

“I want to know his name.” He gripped her upper arm.

She glanced down at his hand. The gesture was possessive, aggressive, yet his touch was gentle on her bare skin. Thank God, he had lost the impulse to violence.

She covered his hand with hers. “His name is Graydon, and he loves you very much.”

“I want to meet him.” His jaw tightened, and so did his fingers. “But not tonight. Where do we go?”

“Do you remember how to get back to the scene where you got hurt?” She studied him, uncertain how he would take the information. “It’s about fifteen miles from here. You were pretty disoriented when you left yesterday.”

His expression closed down. “Yes.”

She hated when he shut her out like that. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Tightening her lips, she said, “The accident happened roughly two hundred yards away from our house, on the other side of some bordering trees.”

He remained silent for so long, she started to worry. He had thought he’d been attacked there. What if he refused to go anywhere near the construction site?

Finally, he replied, “I’ll take us there.”

Before she could do much other than nod her consent, he shapeshifted into the dragon again, his Wyr form filling up the clearing. He didn’t give her time to gather up her pack. Instead, he scooped her into one of his forepaws, crouched and launched.

Clutching at one of his talons, she narrowed her eyes against the warm summer wind. Telepathically, she said, You left your gold and jewels behind.

Along with her satellite phone, in her pack. While she didn’t want to mention that fact, she fretted at losing the ability to call Graydon. Just knowing she had the sat phone with her had felt like a lifeline.

High overhead, Dragos’s head arched on his long, strong neck as he glanced behind them. His reply was telepathic as well. That mountainside is deserted. I’ll return soon enough for it, before anyone else has a chance to find it.

Discouragement crushed down on her. Bracing one elbow on the curve of his claw, she rested her forehead in her hand. He wasn’t just leaving the door open for a way out. He was actively planning on leaving again.

When he left again, would he let her come?

At that, the focus of her questions shifted drastically.

Would he allow her to leave him? What about Liam?

Her anxious thoughts ground to a halt. She didn’t have any answers, only questions.

They fell silent. The dragon’s powerful wingspread made short work of the distance back.

As they had talked, the moon had risen and silvery moonlight illuminated the countryside. A scattering of lights crisscrossed the land, following roads and highlighting houses. The scenery reminded her of the artwork that hung in his offices in New York.

When they neared their land, he slowed and circled, approaching the area in an oblique fashion. She had no doubt he was searching the area with all of his considerable senses, but she already knew what he would find.

Nothing, and no one. The property had been abandoned the day before, and except for a few safety lights, their house lay dark and deserted. Patiently, she waited for him to arrive at the same conclusion.

Apparently he did, for in an abrupt change of course, he landed in the wide clearing in front of the house and set her on her feet. As she watched, he changed back into his human form and strode over to take her arm again.

“A lot of people were here recently,” he said. “Where did they go?”

“We knew you weren’t thinking clearly.” Snapped at her. She closed her eyes, willing the nightmarish image away. “But we also knew the dragon might come back. I ordered everyone to stay away until I told them they could return.”

She took him up to the house. As they approached, his glittering gaze took in everything—the darkened, empty trailers a short distance away, the few cars that were still parked to one side of the house, the piles of building materials, two Caterpillar tractors resting at the edge of the nearby tree line.

Pausing on the front step, he turned to look over the clearing again, and he made a low sound of frustration at the back of his throat.

“Why do I remember some things and not others?” he muttered. “Those are cars. Those two vehicles are bulldozers. This apparatus attached to the side of the house is scaffolding. You called your friend on a satellite phone. You lit the fire with a BIC lighter. All those details are readily available, yet I wouldn’t know my own name if you hadn’t told me.”

Heart aching, she shook her head. “I don’t know. The mind is a complicated, mysterious thing. We could consult with doctors who specialize in traumatic brain injuries. They might be able to help.”

Other than giving her one quick, frowning glance, he didn’t respond to her suggestion. Instead, he grasped the doorknob and turned it. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open.

Twisting her hands together, she followed him into the house. Inside, the renovating materials—ladders, drop cloths, cans of paint and various tools—had been stacked neatly to the sides of the open spaces.

Silently, Dragos strode through the ground floor. She followed, flicking on light switches as they went.

His pace picked up until she had to trot to keep up with him. He paused in the doorway of his large, state-of-the-art office, and she hovered at his shoulder. “My scent is all over this room.”

She told him, “That’s because this room is yours, and you spend a lot of time in here. It’s one of those complicated concepts.”

His jaw flexed. She thought of all the places he would want to explore, that room would be at the top of the list, but after one more sweeping glance, he left it and moved on, prowling through the rest of the house, his presence brooding and intense.

She followed him everywhere he wanted to go—out on the patio, through the palatial kitchen, downstairs to the lower level.

Once, he paused for long moments in the hallway just outside of the hidden panic room. Hope surged again as she watched him. It was an exhausting, out-of-control feeling, as if it was a creature that existed entirely separate from her own needs or wishes.

But he said nothing, and after a few moments, he moved on.

Nerves started to get to her when he took the stairway up to the second floor. She felt strung out, as if she had drunk too much caffeine for too many days. At the top of the stairs he hesitated and turned right. Her heart started to pound, and her hands shook.

She thought, I should say something. I need to warn him.

“You’re afraid.” He said it over one wide shoulder as he strode down the hall, past empty bedrooms with open doors.

“Not afraid, exactly,” she replied tensely.

“Then what—exactly?”

With impeccable instincts, he paused at the closed door of Liam’s nursery and assessed her expression.

She rubbed the corner of her mouth with unsteady fingers. “It’s another one of those complicated concepts.”

He opened the door and walked inside. And froze.

Wrapping her arms around her torso, she gripped her elbows tightly as she watched him from the doorway. The line of his back, from his wide shoulders arrowing down to narrow hips, was taut.

After one pulsing second, he tore through the rest of the rooms. She rushed after him.

He stopped in Peanut’s bedroom, staring at the bright colors on the walls, the crib, the dresser with the changing pad and diapers. Liam’s favorite stuffed animal, his bunny, lay in the crib. Evidently, Hugh and Eva had forgotten to grab it when everyone evacuated.

Dragos picked it up and briefly buried his face in it. His hands clenched on the soft toy until the broad knuckles turned white.

The silence had turned deafening. She hurt everywhere. Her body physically hurt. She didn’t know where to look, or how to hold herself in such a way that the pain would lessen.

He whispered, “This is a male scent. I have a son.”

The words struck the room as loud as a shout. She swallowed hard, and her voice shook as she said, “Yes.”

He looked in the direction of the changing table. “He’s small.”

Again, she said, “Yes.”

He turned to her, his gaze incandescent and raw. “How is that possible? How could I not remember I have a son?”

“I don’t know.” She hadn’t intended to say anything, but her words acquired a life of their own and wrenched themselves out of her. “I don’t know how you could forget either of us. You’re in my bones.”

He jerked toward her, Liam’s bunny still gripped in one fist. “Where is he?”

She put her head in her hands. “He’s in the city.”

“Because of me,” he said through clenched teeth. He cut through the air with one hand. “Because I might have come back here to attack you. He was in danger because of me.”

His violent emotions beat against her skin, an invisible force, until she felt bruised all over. She needed to lean on something.

There was nowhere to go that would be strong enough to brace her against the volcanic force raging in front of her—nowhere but forward. Blindly, she walked until she collided into his chest. “Please stop,” she whispered. “You aren’t the bad guy. There isn’t a bad guy in this situation. It’s just a bad situation.”

His arms came around her. That was what she needed, more than air, more than water. She leaned on his strength, and he held her tightly.

Something came down on the top of her head—his cheek. It touched her briefly then lifted away. His arms loosened.

“I need to see the construction site,” he growled.

Stiffening her spine, she lifted her head as she stepped back. The savagery in his expression took her aback until she realized what he really needed. He felt the need to fight, but there wasn’t any enemy at hand, so he had focused on the only other thing available.

“All right,” she told him. “Let’s go. Let’s do it now.”

Pausing, he set the bunny on the dresser. His fingers seemed to linger on the toy’s soft fur. Then he turned back to her, and they walked out of the nursery together.

There was only one other place in that wing that he hadn’t explored, the closed door at the end of the hall. Glancing toward it, he looked an inquiry at her. She said briefly, “Those are our rooms.”

He hesitated. Conflicting emotions evident in his reluctant pace, he walked to the door and opened it.

A little while ago, she had been braced for him walking into their suite. Now after the raw scene in Liam’s nursery, she could hardly stand it. It felt worse than stripping her clothes off in front of a stranger, more revealing, and she couldn’t breathe as she waited to hear what he would say.

What if he disliked it? What if he rejected it?

He didn’t step over the threshold, but instead flipped on the light switch and stared for a long time at the room inside. His hands had clenched into fists again. He muttered, “This is his space with you.”

She couldn’t have heard him correctly. Shaking her head, she asked, “Excuse me, what did you say?”

Turning off the light again, he closed the door. “Never mind,” he said. His expression had shut down again. Shutting her out again.

Suddenly wild to get out of that hall, with all of its happy memories, she walked rapidly back to the staircase and took the stairs two at a time. This time he was the one who followed her. She walked out the front of the house, never bothering to shut the front door, and strode down the path to the construction site by the lake.

To the place where her life had vanished.

He stayed close on her heels. She could sense him, a great inferno of heat prowling at her back. Within a few moments, they traversed the wooded area and walked out into clear air, at the edge of the site.

As she paused, Dragos came up by her side and they looked over the scene.

Nearby, the lake sparkled peacefully in the moonlight. This construction area was not neat, like the space around their house had been. Tools, hard hats and equipment had been abandoned, and across the clearing, the pile of rubble still lay strewn at the foot of the bluff.

She covered her mouth as she stared at the place, remembering the dread and panic.

Dragos took her by the hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and drew her forward until they stood together at the base of the bluff.

She fell into the past.

Digging bare-handed through the rubble. Hoping against hope.

She was so lost in the memory of her own nightmare, it took her a few moments to realize that the large, strong hand she gripped was trembling.

Pulled out of herself, she turned to face Dragos.

The frame of his body shook. In the moonlight, he looked drawn and ill.

“What is it?” Concerned, she rubbed his arm.

His bleak gaze met hers. He said hoarsely, “I snapped at you.”

Of all the things she needed him to remember, that was the one thing she had hoped he never would.

She had a split second in which to decide how to respond. In that moment, she made a private vow to never talk about the experience.

How she had felt—the shock, the despair—was none of his business. At least she could protect him from that. They would each need to cope with their own issues that had arisen from what had happened, but for now, there was nothing else to do but confront this head-on.

Keeping her voice calm and reasonable, she said, “Well, of course you did. How else would you act? You had just suffered a massive blow to the head, and you thought you were under attack.”

In the short amount of time they’d had together, they had shared some tough moments, but through it all, she had never seen him look so injured. He looked like he wanted to vomit.

“I almost killed you,” he said from the back of his throat. “I could have killed you. What kind of Wyr could do that to his mate?”

He was breathing raggedly, as if he had been running for a long time.

“You didn’t.” She put her arms around his shaking body and held him in her strongest, tightest grip, turning her head so that her cheek rested in the slight hollow of his breastbone. “You wouldn’t.”

He made an inarticulate noise that sounded crushed, and clenched her to him.

“I still don’t remember you,” he whispered.

A few hours ago, hearing those words had wounded her terribly, but now she knew better.

She rubbed his back soothingly. “Yes, you do. Somewhere deep inside of you, you do. We just have to be patient and give this some time.” Tilting back her head, she gave him a gentle smile. “Because I’m in your bones, too.”