Behind the Veil: 3 (Temptation Unveiled) (2 page)

Blinking away tears, she ran the last few yards toward him
and jumped into his arms. “My hero!”

“Careful! Your hero is fragile,” Kyle groaned, but he
wrapped his arms around her in one of his familiar bear hugs. “Holy hell, Harridan.
This place is freezing. And I can hardly breathe, the air’s so thin. Do you
know it’s a balmy eighty degrees, humidity thick as soup in Houston right now?
I was working on my post-New-Year’s farmer’s tan and breathing in all that wet,
textured atmosphere mere moments ago. If your ginger-haired fairy had bothered
to warn me I’d be flashing onto the peak of the highest, coldest friggin’
hillside this side of Santa’s workshop, I’d have brought my thermals.”

Sheridan pulled back to look at him, studying the face she
knew as well as her own. The unkempt wavy hair. The warm brown eyes and ruddy
cheeks. The bushy beard that hid his smart mouth. Something inside her took a
breath for the first time in ages.

Kyle was here.

She buried her face in his neck, enjoying the rough scruff
of his thick brown facial hair and the smell of life. Her old life. Heat and
sweat. Humanity and…cheeseburgers. God, she’d missed having him around.

He chuckled and patted her back gently. “Good to know I’m
welcome, Sher. Especially since you and the rest of your family have abandoned
me to live in the magical Land of Oz and testosterone.”

Raj appeared beside them and Kyle reluctantly set her down. “What’s
cooking, DB?”

Her beautiful instructor grimaced. “I see you’ve picked up a
nasty habit. Dragon Boy is
not
my name. I prefer Raj. If that is too
difficult, Your Highness will do.”

Kyle’s lips quirked upward. “Testy. It’s a new look for you
but I like it. Your Highness though? Word on the street is you abdicated a long
time ago.”

“How did you—?” Raj tensed and inhaled deeply, his eyebrows
raised in surprise. “You’ve been keeping interesting company for a human cop. Perhaps
there’s a sitcom in there somewhere. Nyctimus and the Detective. It has an
amusing ring to it.”

Before Kyle could think of a comeback Raj turned to her. “I
didn’t tell you they were coming because I wasn’t sure when they would arrive.
But now that our guests are here, including your cousin, by the way, I’ll go
see to their accommodations while you both walk back to the lodge. Consider
that the end of your training for the day. But I would hurry. Your playmate
looks cold and…he is only human.”

Kyle made a sound of distress that almost distracted
Sheridan from her own panic at Raj’s announcement. Meru was here?

“Dude, I’m sorry. I really am. Sheridan, tell him I’m sorry.
Obviously the lack of oxygen is already messing with my brain. You aren’t
really going to make us walk in this, are you? Can’t you just,” Kyle made a
waving motion with his gloved hands, “you know…
flash
us there?”

Raj grinned with wicked satisfaction. “Oh I rarely travel
that way here. Why
flash
when you can fly?”

Sheridan couldn’t help but smile as she watched the
gold-and-red mist form around him. She forced Kyle to take more than a few
steps back. This was a transformation she’d seen before and she knew what to
expect.

Sparkling scales reminiscent of diamond-shaped lotus petals appeared
on his skin, his body not expanding so much as disappearing into the large
impossible creature that was forming around him. Within a few heartbeats, his
beautiful features had been replaced by a red-and-gold snout and a mouth full
of pearl-like teeth. Sharp and gleaming.

Raj was a fiercely stunning shifter. Not cursed, but born as
a dragon. An honest-to-goodness fire-breathing dragon.

Evil. They are all evil. Just like—

No. Raj wasn’t evil. Despite her recent lapse, she could
never truly believe that. As she watched him take off, his great wingspan
nearly blotting out the sun and sending a blast of heated air their way from
his body’s warmth, she knew she was right. As a man or as a dragon, he would
never hurt her.

He’d treated her with respect since she arrived. With
compassion. He’d never asked her about what happened or why she wasn’t
contacting her family. He gave her space. Shifts and fireballs notwithstanding,
he often seemed the most human of them all.

Kyle’s muttering brought her attention back down to earth. “I
have
got
to learn when to keep my mouth shut around these guys. You
never know what you’ll be in for.”

Sheridan felt the loss of Raj’s body heat and yanked up the
collar of her jacket. “Tell your story walking, my friend. The lodge isn’t too
far away, but it’s far enough.” She strode to her dropped staff and leaned down
to pick it up before laying it over her left shoulder. When Kyle was finally
beside her, she looped her other arm through his. “To Oz, Toto.”

“Son of a bitch.” He trudged through the snow beside her,
surprising her with the depth of his steps. She hadn’t realized the snow was so
thick. Why hadn’t she noticed? Each step Kyle took sank him up to his calves. Slowed
him down.

Her poor partner was completely out of his element. A Texas
cop in the Himalayas. A man who got so chilly in an air-conditioned movie
theater he had to bring a sweater. Why hadn’t Finn flashed him to the lodge?

She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help it. She
laughed. Not at Kyle, but at the normalcy of it. Of him. The sheer relief of
his humanity—warts and all. Laughing. When was the last time she’d done that
and meant it?

October. The Texas Renaissance Faire. Before the Horde came.

“Sure, yuck it up, Sher.” Kyle was smiling as he grumbled. “You’ve
been up here enjoying your
Rocky
montage while I’ve been stuck in the
real world. I didn’t sign up for a hike to Shangri-fucking-La.”

“Shambhala.” Sheridan smirked as she corrected him, tugging
him along. “Good thing too, since we’re not going there. Apparently
no one
is allowed in that place, even if you know the royal family.”

She wasn’t kidding. Everyone, human or Other, was shut out
of Raj’s sacred city. He hadn’t told her why. Perhaps it was to protect them
from what he faced in the outside world. Or, knowing now how much Raj
appreciated his privacy, it could simply be that
they
had no interest. For
all she knew dragons could be the hermits of the supernatural world.

But that wasn’t the mystery that was making her antsy. “So
what are you doing here? And did you know Meru was coming?”

“Yep. She called me. And then your mother called me. And
then Meru called me again just to follow up. You know how they are.” His breath
puffed out of him, leaving small white clouds trailing behind him like a
freight train as he struggled to keep up. “You look amazing, by the way. Better
than ever. All this fresh, frozen air must be good for you.”

He let out a shivery chuckle and glanced sideways in her
direction. “And here we were all thinking you couldn’t survive without us.”

She heard that heartbreaking note beneath the charm and bit
her lip. “Kyle…”

“No, it’s okay,” he assured her. “
I
knew in high
school that I wouldn’t have you around forever. Figured I’d lose you one day to
some brilliant chiseled-jaw type with a taste for adventure and travel. I had
no idea I was competing with supermen. Or your destiny. You were always
special, Sher. I just didn’t know special meant
this
. Or that it would
take you so far away.”

Sheridan made a face. “I’m not that special, trust me. And
for your information, there’s no competition, babe. Let’s go. You and me. We’ll
hitch a ride on that dragon as soon as we get to the lodge. I’m ready to spend
the rest of my life in your broken-down, smelly old car staking out normal bad
guys.”

“Really
?
”

Her smile felt too wobbly. “Are you kidding? At this point
Harold ‘the Nose’ Delaney’s desk job sounds like a dream to me. Nothing would
make me happier than boring human crime. I’ve had enough danger and magical
creatures for three lifetimes.”

Kyle forced her to stop and stared at her in silence for one
long moment. Then another. “Bullshit.”

The words felt as though they had force. “What?”

He rubbed his hands together briskly, blowing warm air on
his fingers through the gloves, his astute, serious gaze never straying from
hers. “You heard me.” He shrugged. “I wish I could believe you, Sheridan.
Houston sucks without you,
especially
on the job. My new partner’s wife
just left him and he keeps driving by her house and playing the same damn
country song over and over again while he leans on my shoulder and cries. Talk
about hell.”

His new partner. Sheridan tried to ignore the twinge of hurt
as another piece of her old life disappeared. Kyle didn’t seem to notice.

He shook his head. “You may miss me, but you don’t miss
that. You always wanted more. Craved more. And now? Now there’s something
burning inside you that would never be satisfied with boring or ordinary again.
That would never be satisfied with staying out of the fight. Which is why I don’t
understand why you’ve been here so long. It’s obvious you aren’t being held
against your will and you still have all your limbs intact, which can only mean
one thing.” His brown eyes were piercing. “You’ve been hiding as much as
training on this mountain and everyone knows it.”

She glared at him, feeling the sting of betrayal. “Is that
what you think? What
they
think?”

“I don’t give a damn what they think, Sher. It’s what
I
know.” His expression told her he didn’t like what he was saying, but that didn’t
make it any easier to hear. “You could have trained with the
Fianna
.
With Damon and Finn. You could have stayed with your family and worked with
Meru and Myrddin to understand what your part of the prophecy in the Book of
Veils meant. Could have. But you
chose
not to. For the first time in
your life, you ran away. As if you’re actually afraid you won’t be able to do
what you need to do. And the overachieving ass-kicker I used to know? She
wouldn’t be able to stand that.”

He knows you too well. He can see your fear. Your
weakness. He’ll be able to tell.

She grabbed his arm and pushed him forward. “Walk, genius. I
already told Raj I didn’t need therapy. Though I’m thrilled you would travel
all this way just to give me one of your famous pep talks.”

They were famous because the bastard was usually right. “Even
if I
was
doing a little bit of running, could you blame me, Kyle? You
know what I’ve been through since that damned book came into our lives. I wish
he’d never given it to Meru. I’d hate Myrddin for that alone. For filling us
all in on the fun fact that we’re not even close to normal. That Druids are
more than weird freaks in robes.” She pursed her lips in disgust, feeling
bitter. “We are the
only ones
who can save the world, according to him.
My family against the monster horde. Now he’s seduced my mother, dazzled my
cousin and convinced them both that
I
have some ability I’m not sharing.”

Sheridan let go of him and held out her hand, watching it
tremble, more with emotion than cold. “He dragged us into this fight without
caring what kind of danger we’d be in. Now we’re the focus of the
Dark
and that jackass who leads them—from a prison they said no one could escape,
mind you. We’ve been chased. We’ve been kidnapped and uprooted and fought over
like a goddamned bone. And because we’re not cursed werewolves or gifted with
immortality, because we don’t have a magical fucking sword,
we’re
the
ones who could suffer and die. It isn’t fair. We weren’t ready for this.”

Only they
had
been ready, hadn’t they? Meru and Lily
were both thriving in this new reality. Her mother she could understand—a
self-described pagan, Lily was used to spells and enchantments. Used to naked
chanting and incense. Used to crazy. And Meru had spent her life studying all
things old and weird.

The only thing that
had
been a surprise was the way
she lost every trace of shyness the instant Damon arrived on the scene. Sheridan
snorted, thinking of the long sleepless nights before she’d asked for Raj’s
help and came to his mountain. Nights spent listening to passionate animalistic
growls and high-pitched cries of pleasure coming from her cousin’s bedroom. But
it wasn’t just about sex. Since she’d discovered her gift of true sight, Meru
had blossomed in every way.

They
had been born for this.
They
hadn’t
flinched.

Sheridan was the one lacking. She’d chased down criminals
for a living and loved to fight the good fight, yet she was the weak link in
the family chain. Even after all this time in the damn back of beyond, she
still felt fear and shame when she remembered how she’d failed to see the
danger in time and allowed herself to be used as a distraction. Tortured
because of her perceived value. And yes, she was afraid it could happen again.
Or worse, that it would happen to someone who counted on her to save them. And
she would fail.

Only one thing scared her more—the knowledge that it was
just a matter of time before they discovered she was tainted by the
Dark
.
That thing that was Eonis might be physically dead, but a part of him was still
in her head. Torturing her. Reminding her of how completely she’d fucked up.

If she had any power in her blood from her ancestor, he must
have taken it along with her pride. She was amazed Raj hadn’t noticed by now. Didn’t
he see that she hadn’t really had any magical epiphanies? Not the kind Meru had
described when she came into her powers. And until she did, she wouldn’t be
ready to face what came next.

You know what will happen if you tell them you hear
voices in your head or that you have this darkness inside you. We both know.
They’ll never trust you again. Not even Meru. You’ll be all alone…or you’ll be
dead at their hands.