Soul of the Dragon (22 page)

“Sure.”
 

Alexa set off again, hoping against hope Cyrgyn wasn’t in the hangar.
 

* * *
 

Cyrgyn paced in the rear expanse of the hangar. He knew Alexa would be home soon, and he craved her presence. The past few days without her had been hell. The problem with letting Ryc be her protector was that Cyrgyn had no idea what was going on.
 

The small door in the front of the hangar opened, and his heart lightened. He couldn’t believe how good it felt just to have her in the room. It was almost like when he’d first fallen in love with her.
 

“Alexa.”
 

She looked up, her weariness clear on her face and in her manner. “Hi, Cyrgyn.”
 

“You are exhausted.”
 

“Very perceptive of you.” She dropped her duffel and sank into a chair. “Long flight, long couple of days.”
 

“What has happened? Your family? Are they well?”
 

“No report from Ryc?”
 

“I have not spoken with him.”
 

Alexa gave him a rundown of her trip to Seattle. When he learned of Tars’ connection to Peter’s fiancée, he sighed.
 

“I knew he had ties to that region. I did not recall his stepsister’s name.”
 

She shrugged. “I may not have ever said Victoria’s name in front of you. You wouldn’t have guessed. But that’s not the biggest news.” She told him of her mini-attack with water energy and Tars’ revealing reaction.
 

“Yes, that is important. We must consider how best to use it to our advantage.”
 

Alexa nodded, but drooped forward in her chair. “Another day. I’m wiped. I need some sleep.”
 

“Of course.” He waited, but she didn’t come near him, only pulled her bag from the floor and trudged up the stairs. He’d expected an embrace. At least a pat. But she had barely looked at him.
 

He lifted his head to keep her in view as she reached the loft. She paused when she got to her bedroom doorway. She looked over her shoulder. He’d never seen such torment in her eyes. Fear swept over him.
 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and went into the room and shut the door.
 

Cyrgyn sank to his pallet. He, too, was exhausted. The activities he’d undertaken on the trip to Seattle had drained his energy, both magical and physical. But he found it impossible to sleep.
 

Something was very wrong.
 

Alexa slept twelve straight hours. The phone didn’t ring, her alarm clock didn’t go off, and she didn’t dream.
 

She awoke late, famished and eager to see Cyrgyn. In her fatigue last night, things had seemed darker than they were. Her attraction to Ryc was a passing thing. She was lonely, she craved companionship—and, yes, sex—and her lover was so near but so unattainable. It made sense that she’d project her needs to the nearest male able to fulfill them. A little voice kept asking what ifs—like, what if she didn’t feel the same attraction for Cyrgyn when he was a man again?—but she managed to stifle it and regain at least a little optimism by the time she left her room.
 

She expected Cyrgyn to be in the hangar, asleep. He’d spent yesterday flying halfway across the country after spending two nights in the damp woods. But his bed was empty. He hadn’t returned from roaming yet.
 

Disappointed, Alexa fixed herself some breakfast and sat at the little kitchen table, eating and reading the paper. She’d just snapped off a bite of bacon when she heard a squeak and click downstairs.
 

She froze. The hinges on the human-sized door squealed, unoiled for precisely this reason—to give her an early warning if her alarms were tampered with. She set down the other half of her bacon and slowly rotated in her seat. Tucked the uneaten portion into her cheek—chewing it would be too loud and she wouldn’t be able to hear the intruder.
 

Without making a sound, she rose to her feet, then reached under the table and detached a gun she’d taped there. Some of her colleagues preferred Velcro, claiming it held better and allowed for quicker release. Alexa didn’t like the announcement it made when it pulled apart, so she used duct tape across the barrel and grip of the gun.
 

Holding the weapon pointing upward, ready, she stepped barefoot across the loft to the wall next to the stairs. The curve of the stairs meant she couldn’t see down them until she reached the top, where she’d be vulnerable. She eased up against the wall, then spun around the corner.
 

Before she brought her weapon all the way down, though, she was swept up in powerful arms and wrapped tightly against a wide chest. Ryc’s mouth slammed down onto hers. Her normal fighting reaction didn’t even fire because her body recognized him. His shape, his scent. His taste. This kiss had everything the first didn’t. Movement, tongue, and oh, wow, technique. His tongue swept her mouth, hungry, as his hands burned on her back.
 

Alexa struggled to pull her index finger off the trigger of the weapon without discharging it into Ryc’s butt. The rest of her body got busy wrapping itself around him. He was so tall, so hard, so friggin’
hot
. The heat penetrated her core, flooded her, swelled. She ached and burned under the flash fire.
 

But part of her brain poked at her. Cyrgyn could be back any minute. It was enough to douse the flames, and she dropped to her feet and eased back. Ryc kept his hands at her waist, didn’t let her move away, and she thought he might be smelling her hair. She had to swallow hard
a few times.
 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I couldn’t stay away. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
 

Alexa’s traitorous heart thrilled to his words. She pushed away from him. “What were you sneaking in here for? I could have killed you!”
 

She whirled away and uncocked the gun, double-checking the safety before retaping it under the table. She was once again speechless. Heat seeped into her back and she knew Ryc was behind her. She leaned one palm on the table top and put the other hand over her eyes.
 

“I can’t, Ryc. I can’t do this to Cyrgyn.”
 

“Alexa, it’s no easier for me. I understand. Truly.” He tugged at her shoulder until she straightened and turned, then pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around his waist and fought the sobs that crowded her chest.
 

Ryc’s low voice surrounded her, soothing and calm, even as his hands stroked her back and her loose hair. “Cyrgyn is more than a friend to me. I’m more than an employee or mercenary or even champion to him. Doing anything with you would be a betrayal.” He gripped her shoulders and eased her back until he could see her face. “I’m aware you’re committed to him. I don’t seek to break that.”
 

Alexa noticed his odd speech pattern and realized he did it when he got emotional. “Then why are you here? Do you know how hard it was for me to leave you yesterday, then face him when I got home? I felt vile. He watched me with the saddest eyes, and I couldn’t go near him.” She covered her face again, remembering his pain. How could she even consider getting involved with Ryc?
 

She looked at him, and the answer was obvious. He was sexy, but he was also smart, and understood her world. All of it. She didn’t have to keep secrets from him—it surprised to her realize that somewhere along the way she’d given him her trust.
 

As Cyrgyn had.
 

“Oh!” Disgusted, she walked away to the rail. For a split second she imagined just tipping over the top, falling to the concrete below. Ending the whole stupid mess.
 

The second passed quickly and she didn’t dwell on the thought or the repercussions of such an act. There had to be a way. She needed Cyrgyn, needed her soulmate, before she destroyed him because of a little lust complicated by respect.
 

“You’d better go,” she said without turning around.
 

“Will you be all right?”
 

“Of course. But it’s probably better if you don’t come back.”
 

“I’ll have to.” He was near again, standing next to her at the rail. He brushed her hair off her shoulder, exposing her profile. “You need training, and I’m the only one who can provide it. I promise, I won’t touch you again.”
 

His hand cupped the back of her neck and pressed her face toward his. “After this,” he whispered, bending over her, “I won’t touch you again.”
 

This kiss was tender and poignant. Their lips clung, their chests shuddered with the suppressed emotion. Ryc’s tongue gently dipped between Alexa’s lips and she opened to him, stretching the goodbye.
 

When it was over, he left quickly, locking the door behind him. Alexa watched him go, then let her sorrow and pain turn to anger. Mindful of her bare toes, she avoided kicking the iron post next to her. She had no such restraint when it came to smashing her breakfast dishes,
however. She snatched the nearly empty plate and flicked her wrist to fling it toward the counter. The cheap china shattered satisfyingly against the Formica backsplash. The coffee mug was next, into the stainless sink because it was still full of coffee, and despite her anger she knew she was the one who’d have to clean it up. Her juice glass was last, against the wall behind the sink. Still raging, she grabbed the fork and spoon off the table and whipped them hard at the cupboard, where they bounced, unharmed, to the floor. The cupboard had a nice dent, at least.
 

Breathing hard, Alexa surveyed the damage. Ten seconds of venting and twenty minutes of cleanup, she thought. Not the best investment.
 

She’d barely begun to sweep up the broken glass and china when the hangar door rumbled open and Cyrgyn glided in.
 

“What happened?” he asked, nudging a chunk of porcelain with his claw. Alexa stomped down the stairs and snatched it up, tossing it into her garbage bag, then furiously sweeping the few fragments on the cement into her dustpan. She stomped equally furiously back up to the loft, slamming her hand on the button to close the door as she passed. “Don’t ask,” she finally bit out after finishing the job.
 

“Oooo-kay.”
 

Alexa looked at him and burst out laughing. The laugh pricked a hole in a huge, anguish-filled balloon in her chest and poured out until she was on the floor, hysterical with a mixture of laughter and tears.
 

Cyrgyn snaked his head under the rail and along the floor until his snout rested next to her knee. She felt his hot breath along her whole right side, sensed his concern, and tried to calm down. But she hadn’t cried since her mother died, and twenty-one years of suppressed emotion had finally found an outlet.
 

She hadn’t even realized she’d been suppressing it. Anger that she’d begun to fall for a man she couldn’t have, and guilt because he wasn’t the man she could, combined with her fear that she would fail, and worse, that Tarsuinn would destroy everything that was important to her. Once she’d vented those emotions, grief and anger and resentment welled up to take their place. Her mother’s death had made her responsible for her family and left her without the love and support most people took for granted.
 

She drew in a desperate breath, hating her descent into self-pity. Her mother hadn’t chosen to die, and her father and brother hadn’t forced her into the caretaker role. She’d chosen her career and its resultant solitude, preparing for a destiny she hadn’t been fully aware of.
 

Finally she stopped the flow and heaved a few dry, controlling sobs. When she opened her eyes the first thing she saw was a box of tissues next to Cyrgyn’s foreclaw.
 

“How…?”
 

“It was on the table. I managed to pull it off.”
 

Alexa snatched a handful and mopped her face. She could imagine the contortions he had to go through to get the box down without shredding it. “Thank you.”
 

“Do not thank me. I suspect I am the cause of this display.”
 

“No.” She laid a hand on his neck. The supple warmth immediately eased the tightness that remained in her chest. “Never you.”
 

He let out a small snort. “Alexa, every bad thing in your life can be traced to me. I cannot rectify some of those things. I hope to help you resolve others.”
 

Alexa twisted to rest her head where her hand had been. “You can’t take the blame,
Cyrgyn. You couldn’t prevent Tarsuinn’s actions.”
 

“Maybe I could have.”
 

His rumble was full of sorrow. It threatened to make Alexa cry again. She wondered if he was referring to her mother’s death, if he really could have prevented it. But she was too drained to confront him about it now. “Don’t go there. I know from experience it doesn’t help.” She blew her nose and tossed the wad of tissues toward the trash bag. “I guess once in a while we need to let things out or we’ll explode. But I can’t change what upset me. All I can do is go forward. So, let’s go forward.”
 

She stood and finished cleaning up the mess, then wrapped a bandage around her finger where she’d cut it without noticing. She turned back to the dragon, who still had his head on the loft floor.
 

“Where do we start?”
 

He looked up with rueful eyes. “How about with getting me out of here? I believe I am stuck.”
 

Alexa laughed and went to his rescue.
 

* * *